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MENTONE, CAIRO, AND CORFU 



BY 



CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON 

AtTTHOIt OF 

ANNE " "EAST ANGELS" "HORACE CHASE " ETC. 



ILLUSTRATED 




NEW YORK 
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 

1896 




By CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON. 



THE FRONT YARD, Etc. 

lustrated. $1 25. 
ANNE. Illustrated. $1 25. 
EAST ANGELS. $1 25. 
JUPITER LIGHTS. $1 25. 



HORACE CHASE. $1 25. 
CASTLE NOWHERE. $1 00. 
RODMAN THE KEEPER. $1 00. 
FOR THE MAJOR. Illustrated. 
$100. 



Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New Youk. 






THE L1B1U 
Of COWGRESS 

iWASHlltOTOWj 






<\ Y~ 



Copyright, 1895, by Harper & Brothers. 



All rights reserved. 



2/3 



PUBLISHERS' NOTE. 

The substance of this collection of Miss Woolson's sketches 
of travel in the Mediterranean originally appeared in Har- 
per's Magazine. "At Mentone" was published in that 
periodical in 1884; "Cairo in 1890," and "Corfu and the 
Ionian Sea," appeared in 1891 and 1892. As presented in 
this volume, the two sketches last mentioned contain much 
interesting material not included in their original form as 
magazine articles. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 
AT MENTONE 3 

CAIRO IN 1890 149 

CORFU AND THE IONIAN SEA ....... 283 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



PAGE 

STREET IN THE NEW QUARTER OF CAIRO Frontispiece 

at mentone 5 

the old town 9 

a street in the old town 13 

rue longue blockaded by an artist 19 

the cornice road, mentone 23 

"to italy" — pont st. louis 27 

the palms of bordighera . 31 

the bone caverns 37 

the professor discourses 43 

the washer-women 49 

OIL MILL 55 

A MEDITERRANEAN BOAT 60 

BRINGING LEMONS FROM 'THE TERRACE 63 

ON THE WAY TO l' ANNUNZIATA 69 

THE MONASTERY OF L' ANNUNZIATA. 74 

CAPUCHIN MONKS 77 

MONACO 83 

STREET IN ROCCABRUNA 91 

THE KING OF THE OLIVES 97 

FEUDAL TOWER NEAR VENTIMIGLIA 102 

DOLCE ACQUA 107 

PIFFERARI 113 

MONACO — THE PALACE AND PORT 117 

ENTRANCE TO THE PALACE, MONACO 121 

THE SALLE GRIMALDI, IN THE PALACE, MONACO 126 

THE RIDE TO SANT' AGNESE 129 



Vlll 

PAGE 

VIEW FROM SANT' AGNESE 134 

FETE, VILLAGE OF SAN!' AGNESE ........... 137 

VESTIGES OF ROMAN MONUMENTS 140 

THE STATUE IN THE CEMETERY 143 

CONTEMPORARY PORTRAIT OF CLEOPATRA 149 

THE NILE BRIDGE, CAIRO 154 

BEFORE THE LITTLE MOSQUE 15S 

TOMB-MOSQUE OF KAIT BEY 161 

A SELLER OF WATER-JUGS, CAIRO 167 

STATUE OF PRINCE RAHOTEP'S WIFE 172 

THE WOODEN MAN 175 

AN EGYPTIAN WOMAN ' . . .' 181 

THE NILE — COMING DOWN TO GET WATER 187 

THE DOCK AT OLD CAIRO 191 

MOUCHRABIYEHS IN THE OLD QUARTER 195 

INTERIOR COURT OF A NATIVE HOCSE, CAIRO 199 

A DONKEY RIDE 205 

AN ARAB CAFE 209 

HEAD-PIECE 212 

PORCH OF EL AZHAR 215 

STUDENTS IN THE OUTER COURT, EL AZHAR 221 

BEFORE THE SACRED NICHE 227 

OUTER ENTRANCE OF THE CITADEL, CAIRO 233 

A MECCA DOOR 237 

THE ROAD TO CHOUBRA 239 

GARDEN-HOUSE AT CHOUBRA, SHOWING PART OF THE LAKE NEAR 

CAIRO 243 

THE KHEDIVE 247 

CHIEF WIFE OF EX-KHEDIVE ISMAIL, WITH HER PRIVATE BAND . 251 

AN EGYPTIAN DANCING-GIRL 259 

THE INUNDATION NEAR CAIRO 267 

A MOHAMMEDAN CEMETERY, CAIRO 273 

SOUVENIRS OF CAIRO 279 

HEAD-PIECE 283 

PART OF THE TOWN OF CORFU 2S7 

THE PALACE 293 



IX 

PAGE 

UNIVERSITY OF THE IONIAN ISLANDS 294 

SMALL TEMPLE, MEMORIAL TO SIR THOMAS MAITLAND .... 29G 

STATUE OF CAPO D'lSTRIA 299 

THE TOMB OF MENEKRATES 305 

THE ISLET CALLED "THE SHIP OF ULYSSES " 311 

VILLAGE OF PELLEKA 315 

KING GEORGE OF GREECE 319 

QUEEN OLGA OF GREECE 323 

u MON REPOS," SUMMER RESIDENCE OF THE KING OF GREECE . 327 

IN THE GROUNDS OF THE NEW VILLA OF THE EMPRESS OF AUSTRIA 331 

ALBANIAN MALE COSTUME 335 

ALBANIAN FEMALE COSTUME 339 

GALA COSTUME, CORFU 343 

OLIVE GROVE, CORFU , 351 



AT MENTONE 



AT MENTONE 



" Kennst du das Land wo die Citronen bluhen?" 

— Goethe. 

It is of no consequence why or how we came to 
Mentone. The vast subject of health and health resorts, 
of balancings between Torquay and Madeira, Algeria and 
Sicily, and, in a smaller sphere, between Cannes, Nice, 
Mentone, and San Remo, may as well be left at one 
side while we happily imitate the Happy-thought Man's 
trains in Bradshaw, which never " start," but " arrive." 
We therefore arrived. Our party, formed not by selec- 
tion, or even by the survival of the fittest (after the 
ocean and Channel), but simply by chance aggregation, 
was now composed of Mrs. Trescott and her daughter 
Janet, Professor Mackenzie, Miss Graves, the two youths 
Inness and Baker, my niece, and myself, myself being 
Jane Jefferson, aged fifty, and my niece Margaret Sev- 
erin, aged twenty-eight. 

As I said above, we were an aggregation. The Tres- 
cotts had started alone, but had " accumulated " (so 
Mrs. Trescott informed me) the Professor. The Pro- 
fessor had started alone, and had accumulated the 
Trescotts. Inness and Baker had started singly, but 
had first accumulated each other, and then ourselves ; 
while Margaret and I, having accumulated Miss Graves, 



found ourselves, with her, imbedded in the aggrega- 
tion, partly by chance and partly by that powerful 
force propinquity. Arriving at Mentone, our aggrega- 
tion went unbroken to the Hotel des Anglais, in 
the East Bay — the East Bay, the Professor said, being 
warmer than the West : the Professor had been at 
Mentone before. " The East Bay," he explained, " is 
warmer because more closely encircled by the moun- 
tains, which rise directly behind the house. The West 
Bay has more level space, and there are several little 
valleys opening into it, through which currents of air 
can pass ; it is therefore cooler, but only a matter of two 
or three degrees." It was evening, and our omnibus 
proceeded at a pace adapted to the " Dead March " 
from Saul through a street so narrow and walled in 
that it was like going through catacombs. Only, as 
Janet remarked, they did not crack whips in the cata- 
combs, and here the atmosphere seemed to be princi- 
pally cracks. But the Professor brought up the flagel- 
lants who might have been there, and they remained up 
until we reached our destination. We decided that the 
cracking of whips and the wash of the sea were the 
especial sounds of Mentone ; but the whips ceased at 
nightfall, and the waves kept on, making a soft mur- 
murous sound which lulled us all to restful slumber. 
We learned later that all vehicles are obliged, by orders 
from the town authorities, to proceed at a snail's pace 
through the narrow street of the " old town," the city 
treasury not being rich enough to pay for the number 
of wooden legs and arms which would be required were 
this rule disregarded. 

The next morning when we opened our windows 
there entered the Mediterranean Sea. It is the bluest 
water in the world; not a clear cold blue like that of 
the Swiss lakes, but a soft warm tint like that of June 
sky, shading off on the horizon, not into darker blue or 



gray, but into the white of opal and mother-of-pearl. 
With the sea came in also the sunshine. The sunshine of 
Mentone is its glory, its riches, its especial endowment. 
Day follows day, month follows month, without a cloud ; 
the air is pure and dry, fog is unknown. " The sun 
never stops shining ;" and to show that this idea, which 
soon takes possession of one there, is not without some 
foundation, it can be stated that the average number 
of days upon which the sun does shine, as the phrase 
is, all day long is two hundred and fifty-nine ; that is, 
almost nine months out of the twelve. " All the world 
is cheered by the sun," writes Shakespeare; and cer- 
tainly "cheer" is the word that best expresses the 
effect of the constant sunshine of Mentone. 

We all came to breakfast with unclouded foreheads ; 
even the three fixed wrinkles which crossed Mrs. Tres- 
cott's brow (she always alluded to them as " midnight 
oil ") were not so deep as usual, and her little counte- 
nance looked as though it had been, if not ironed, at 
least smoothed out by the long sleep in the soft air. 
She floated into the sunny breakfast-room in an aureola 
of white lace, with Janet beside her, and followed by 
Inness and Baker. Margaret and I had entered a mo- 
ment before with Miss Graves, and presently Professor 
Mackenzie joined us, radiating intelligence through his 
shining spectacles to that extent that I immediately 
prepared myself for the " Indeeds ?" " Is it possibles ?" 
"You surprise me," with which I was accustomed to 
assist him, when, after going all around the circle in 
vain for an attentive eye, he came at last to mine, 
which are not beautiful, but always, I trust, friendly to 
the friendless. Yet so self-deceived is man that I have 
no doubt but that if at this moment interrogated as to 
his best listener during that journey and sojourn at 
Mentone, he would immediately reply, " Miss Trescott." 

People were coming in and out of the room while 



we were there, the light Continental " first breakfast " 
of rolls and coffee or tea not detaining them long. 
Two, however, were evidently loitering, under a flimsy 
pretext of reading the unflimsy London Times, in order 
to have a longer look at Janet ; these two were English- 
men. Was Janet, then, beautiful ? That is a question 
hard to answer. She was a slender, graceful girl with 
a delicate American face, small, well-poised head, sweet 
voice, quiet manner, and eyes — well, yes, the expression 
in Janet's eyes was certainly a remarkable endowment. 
It could never be fixed in colors; it cannot be de- 
scribed in ink ; it may perhaps be faintly indicated as 
each gazing man's ideal promised land. And this 
centre was surrounded by such a blue and childlike un- 
consciousness that every new-comer tumbled in immedi- 
ately, as into a blue lake, and never emerged. 

" You have been roaming, Professor," said Mrs. 
Trescott, as he took his seat ; " you have a fine breezy 
look of the sea. I heard the wa-ash, wa-ash, upon the 
beach all night. But you have been out early, commun- 
ing with Aurora. Do not deny it." 

The Professor had no idea of denying it. " I have 
been as far as the West Bay," he said, taking a roll. 
" Mentone has two bays, the East, where we are, and 
the West, the two being separated by the port and the 
' old town.' Behind us, on the north, extends the 
double chain of mountains, the first rising almost di- 
rectly from the sea, the second and higher chain be- 
hind, so that the two together form a screen, which 
completely protects this coast. Thus sheltered, and 
opening only towards the south, the bays of Mentone 
are like a conservatory, and we like the plants growing 
within." (This, for the Professor, was quite poet- 
ical.) 

11 1 have often thought that to be a flower in a con- 
servatory would be a happy lot," observed Janet. " One 



11 



could have of the perfumes, sit still all the time, and 
never be out in the rain." 

" I trust, Miss Trescott, you have not often been ex- 
posed to inclement weather ?" said the Professor, look- 
ing up. 

He meant rain ; but Mrs. Trescott, who took it upon 
herself to answer him, always meant metaphor. " Not 
yet," she answered ; " no inclement weather yet for my 
child, because I have stood between. But the time may 
come when, that barrier removed — " Here she waved 
her little claw-like hand, heavy with gems, in a sort of 
sepulchral suggestiveness, and took refuge in coffee. 

The Professor, who supposed the conversation still 
concerned the weather, said a word or two about the 
excellent English umbrella he had purchased in London, 
and then returned to his discourse. " The first moun- 
tains behind us," he remarked, " are between three and 
four thousand feet high; the second chain attains a 
height of eight and nine thousand feet, and, stretching- 
back, mingles with the Swiss Alps. Our name is 
Alpes Maritimes ; we run along the coast in this direc- 
tion " (indicating it on the table-cloth with his spoon), 
"and at Genoa we become the Apennines. The winter 
climate of Mentone is due, therefore, to its protected 
situation ; cold winds from the north and northeast, 
coming over these mountains behind us, pass far above 
our heads, and advance several miles over the sea 
before they fall into the water. The mistral, too, 
that scourge of Southern France, that wind, cold, dry, 
and sharp, bringing with it a yellow haze, is unknown 
here, kept off by a fortunately placed shoulder of 
mountain running down into the sea on the west." 

"Indeed?" I said, seeing the search for a listener 
beginning. 

"Yes," he replied, starting on anew, encouraged, 
but, as usual, not noticing from whom the encourage- 



12 



merit came — " yes ; and the sirocco is even pleasant 
here, because it comes to us over a wide expanse of 
water. The characteristics of a Mentone winter are 
therefore sunshine, protection from the winds, and dry- 
ness. It is, in truth, remarkably dry." 

" Very," said Inness. 

" I have scarcely ever seen it equalled," remarked 
Baker. 

Margaret smiled, but I looked at the two youths re- 
provingly. Mrs. Trescott said, " Dry ? Do you find 
it so? But you are young, whereas / have reminis- 
cences. Tears are not dry." 

They certainly are not ; but why she should have al- 
luded to them at that moment, no one but herself knew. 
There was a mystery about some of Mrs. Trescott's 
moods which made her society interesting : no one 
could ever tell what she would say next. 

After breakfast we sat awhile in the garden, where 
there were palm, lemon, and orange trees, high woody 
bushes of heliotrope, grotesque growth of cactus, and 
the great gray-blue swords of the century-plant. Be- 
fore us stretched the sea. Even if we had not known 
it, we should have felt sure that its waters laved trop- 
ical shores somewhere, and that it was the reflection of 
those far skies which we caught here. 

Miss Graves now joined us, with an acquaintance she 
had discovered, a Mrs. Clary, who had " spent several 
winters at Mentone," and who adored " every stone of 
it." This phrase, which no doubt sounded well coming 
from Mrs. Clary, who was an impulsive person, with fine 
dark eyes and expressive mobile face, assumed a com- 
ical aspect when repeated by the sober voice of Miss 
Graves. Mrs. Clary, laughing, hastened to explain ; 
and Miss Graves, noticing Mrs. Trescott on a bench in 
the shade, where she and her laces had floated down, 
said, warningly, " I should advise you to rise ; I have 




A STREET IN THE OLD TOWN 



15 



just learned that the shade of Mentone is of the most 
deadly nature, and to be avoided like a scorpion." 

Mrs. Trescott and her laces floated up. " Is it 
damp V she asked, alarmed. 

" No," replied Miss Graves, " it is not damp. It does 
not know how to be damp at Mentone. But the shade 
is deadly, all the same. Now in Florida it was other- 
wise." And she went into the house to get a white 
umbrella. 

" Matilda's temperament is really Alpine," said Mrs. 
Clary, smiling. " I have always felt that she would be 
cold even in heaven." 

" In that case," said Baker, "she might try — " But 
he had the grace to stop. 

" What is it about the shade ?" I asked. 

" Only this," said Mrs. Clary : " as the warmth is 
due to the heat of the sun, and not to the air, which is 
cool, there is more difference between the sunshine and 
shade here than we are accustomed to elsewhere. But 
surely it is a small thing to remember. The treasure of 
Mentone is its sunshine : in it, safety ; out of it, danger." 

" Like Mr. Micawber's income," said Margaret, smil- 
ino\ " Amount, twenty shillings ; you spend nineteen 
shillings and sixpence — riches ; twenty shillings and six- 
pence — bankruptcy." 

A little later we went down to the " old town," as 
the closely built village of the Middle Ages, clinging to 
the side hill, and hardly changed in the long lapse of 
centuries, is called. The " old town " lies between the 
East Bay and the West Bay, as the body of a bird lies 
between the tw T o long, slender wings. 

" The West Bay has its Promenade du Midi, and the 
East Bay has its sea-wall," said Mrs. Clary. " I like a 
sea-wall." 

" This one does not approach that at St. Augustine," 
said Miss Graves. 



16 



" Here is one of the fountains or wells," said Mrs. 
Clary. " You will soon see that going for water and 
gossiping at the well are two occupations of the women 
everywhere in this region. It conies, I suppose, from 
the scarcity of water, which is brought in pipes from 
long distances to these wells, to which the women must 
go for all the water needed by their households. No- 
tice the classic shapes of the jugs and jars they bear 
on their heads. Those green ones might be majolica." 

We now turned up a paved ascent, and passing under 
a broad stone archway, entered the " old town," through 
whose narrow, lane-like streets no vehicle could be 
driven, through some of them hardly a donkey. The 
principal avenue, the Rue Longue, but a few feet in 
width, was smoothly paved and clean ; but walking 
there was like being at the bottom of a well, so far 
above and so narrow was the little ribbon of blue sky 
at the top. Unbroken stone walls rose on each side, 
directly upon the street, five and six stories in height, 
shutting out the sunshine ; and these tall gray walls 
were often joined above our heads also by arches, " like 
uncelebrated bridges of sighs," Janet said. These 
closely built continuous blocks were the homes of the 
native population, " old Mentone," unspoiled by prog- 
ress and strangers. The low doorways showed stone 
steps ascending somewhere in the darkness, showed 
low-ceilinged rooms, whose only light was from the 
door, where were mothers and babies, men mending 
shoes, women sewing and occupied with household 
tasks, as calmly as though daylight was not the natural 
atmosphere of mankind, but rather their own dusky 
gloom. Outside the doors little black-eyed children 
sat on the pavement, eating the dark sour bread of the 
country, and here and there old women in circular white 
hats like large dinner plates were spinning thread with 
distaff and spindle. Above were some bits of color: 



17 



pots of flowers on high window-sills, bright-hued rags 
hung out to dry, or a dark-eyed girl, with red kerchief 
tied over her black braids, looking down. 

" It is all like a scene from an opera," said Janet. 

" Oh no," said Mrs. Clary ; " say rather that it is 
like a scene from the Middle Ages." 

" That is what I mean," said Janet. " The scenes in 
the operas are generally from the Middle Ages." 

" The chorus always" said Baker. 

" It is a pity you cannot see the old mansion of the 
Princes," said Mrs. Clary. "But I see the street is 
blockaded just now by the artist." 

" By the artist ?" said Janet. 

" Yes ; this one, a Frenchman, is rather broad-shoul- 
dered, and when he is at work he blockades the street. 
However, the mansion is not especially interesting ; it 
w T as built by one of the later Princes with the stones of 
the ruined castle above, and has, I believe, only a vaulted 
hallway and one or two marble pillars. It is now a 
lodging-house. I saw dancing-dogs going up the stair- 
way yesterday." 

From the Rue Longue we had turned into a labyrinth 
of crooked, staircase-like lanes, winding here and there 
from side to side, but constantly ascending, the whole 
net-work, owing to the number of arches thrown across 
above, seeming to be half underground, but in reality 
a honey-combed erection clinging to the steep hill-side. 

" Dancing-dogs !" said Janet, pausing in the darkest 
of these turnings. "Let us go back and see them." 

But we all exclaimed against this ; Mrs. Trescott's 
little old feet were wearied with curling over the round 
stones, and Margaret was tired. Inness and Baker 
offered to make dancing-dogs of themselves for the re- 
mainder of the morning, and dogs, too, of a very su- 
perior quality, if she would only go on. 

The Professor, who, in his " winnowing progress," 



18 



as Mrs. Trescott called it, had fallen behind, now joined 
us, followed by Miss Graves. 

" I have just witnessed a remarkably interesting little 
ceremony," he began, " quite mediaeval — a herald, with 
his trumpet, making an announcement through the 
streets. I could not comprehend all he said, but no 
doubt it was something of importance to the commu- 
nity." 

" It was," said Miss Graves's monotonous voice. " He 
was telling them that excellent sausage-meat was now 
to be obtained at a certain shop for a price much lower 
than before." 

"Ah," said the Professor. Then, rallying, he added, 
" But the ceremony was the same." 

" Certainly," I said, with my usual unappreciated 
benevolence. 

" I wonder what induced these people to build their 
houses upon such a crag as this, when they had the 
whole sunny coast to choose from ?" said Janet. 

The Professor, charmed with this idle little speech 
(which he took for a thirst for knowledge), hastened by 
several of us as we walked in single file, in order to be 
nearer to the questioner. 

" You may not be aware, Miss Trescott," he began 
(she was still in advance, but he hoped to make up the 
distance), " that this whole shore, called the Riviera — " 

" Let us begin fairly," I said. " What is the Ri- 
viera ?" 

" It is heaven," said Mrs. Clary. 

" It is the coast of the Gulf of Genoa," said the Pro- 
fessor, " extending both eastward and westward from the 
city of that name. On the west it extends geograph- 
ically to Nice ; but Cannes and Antibes are generally 
included. This shore-line, then, has been subject from 
a very early date to attacks from the pirates of the 
Mediterranean, who swept down upon the coast and 




RUE LOXGUE BLOCKADED BY AN ARTIST 



21 



carried off as slaves all who came in their way. To es- 
cape the horrors of this slavery the inhabitants chose 
situations like this steep hill-side, and crowded their 
stone dwellings closely together so that they formed 
continuous walls, which were often joined also by arched 
bridges, like these above us now, and connected by dark 
and winding passageways below, so that escape was 
easy and pursuit impossible. It was a veritable — " 

" Rabbit-warren," suggested Baker. 

Inness made no suggestions ; he was next to the Pro- 
fessor, and fully occupied in blocking, with apparent 
entire unconsciousness, all his efforts to pass and join 
Janet. 

The Professor, not accepting, however, the rabbit- 
warren, continued: "As recently as 1830, Miss Tres- 
cott, when the French took possession of Algiers, they 
found there thousands of miserable Christian slaves, 
natives of this northern shore, who had been seized on 
the coast or taken from their fishing-boats at sea. There 
are men now living in Mentone who in their youth 
spent years as slaves in Tunis and Algiers. These 
pirates, these scourges of the Mediterranean, were Sar- 
acens, and — " 

" Saracens !" said Janet, with an accent of admira- 
tion ; " what a lovely word it is ! What visions of ro- 
mance and adventure it brings up, especially when 
spelled with two r's, so as to be Sarrasins ! It is even 
better than Paynim." 

I could not see how the Professor took this, because 
we were now all entirely in the dark, groping our way 
along a passage which apparently led through cellars. 

" We are in an impasse, or blind passage," called 
Mrs. Clary from behind ; "we had better go back." 

Hearing this, we all retraced our steps — at least, we 
supposed we did. But when we reached comparative 
daylight again we found that Janet, Inness, and Baker 



22 



were not with us ; they had found a way through that 
impasse, although we could not, and were sitting- high 
above us on a white wall in the sunshine, when, breath- 
less, we at last emerged from the labyrinth and dis- 
covered them. 

" That looks like a cemetery," said Mrs. Trescott, dis- 
approvingly, disentangling her lace shawl from a bush. 
"You said it was a castle." She addressed the Pro- 
fessor, and with some asperity ; she did not like ceme- 
teries. 

" It was the castle," explained our learned guide ; 
" the castle erected in 1502, by one of the Princes, upon 
the site of a still earlier one, built in 1250." 

" That Prince used the ruins of his ancestors as his 
descendants afterwards used his," observed Margaret, 
referring to the mansion in the street below. 

" Possibly," said the Professor. He never gave Mar- 
garet more than a possibility ; although a man of hy- 
phens and semicolons, he generally dismissed her with 
an early period. " These old arches and buttresses," 
he continued, turning to Mrs. Trescott, " were once part 
of the castle. Turreted walls extended from here down 
to the sea." 

"What they did once, of course I do not know," 
said Mrs. Trescott, implacably, " but now they plainly 
enclose a cemetery. Janet ! Janet ! come down ! we 
are going back." And she turned to descend. 

" The cemetery is a lovely spot," said Mrs. Clary, as 
we lingered a moment looking at the white marble 
crosses gleaming above us, outlined against the blue 
sky. 

" Some other time," I answered, following Mrs. Tres- 
cott. For the quiet, lovely gardens where we lay our 
dead had too strong an attraction for Margaret already. 
She was fond of lingering amid their perfume and their 
silence, and she sought this one the next day, and after- 




THE CORNICE ROAD, MESTOXE 



25 



wards often went there. It was a peculiar little ceme- 
tery, alone on the height, and walled like a fortress ; 
but it was beautiful in its way, lifted up against the sky 
and overlooking the sea. On the eastern edge was a 
monument, the seated figure of a woman with her hands 
gently clasped, her eyes gazing over the water ; the face 
was lovely, and not idealized — the face of a woman, 
not an angel. Margaret took a fancy to this white 
watcher on the height, and often stole away to look at 
the sunset, seated near it. I think she identified its 
loneliness somewhat with herself. 

We went through the labyrinth again, but by another 
route, not quite so dark and piratical, although equally 
narrow. Miss Graves liked nothing she saw, but walked 
on unmoved, save that at intervals she observed that it 
was " deathly cold " in these " stony lanes," and " must 
be unhealthy." Mrs. Clary's assertion that the people 
looked remarkably vigorous only called out a shake of 
the head ; Miss Graves was set upon " fever." It was 
amusing to see how carefully all the houses were num- 
bered, up and down these break -neck little streets, 
through the narrowest burrows, and under the darkest 
arches. Here and there some citizen wealthier than his 
neighbors had painted his section of front in bright 
pink or yellow, and perhaps adorned his Madonna in 
her little shrine over the door with new robes, those 
broadly contrasted blues and reds of Italy, which Amer- 
ican eyes must learn by gradual education to admire ; 
or, if not by education, then by residence ; for he will 
find himself liking them naturally after a while, as a re- 
lief from the unchanging white light of the Italian day. 
We came down by way of the square or piazza on the 
hill-side, to and from which broad flights of steps ascend 
and descend. Here are the two churches of St. Michael 
and the White Penitents, whose campaniles, with that 
of the Black Penitents beyond, make the " three spires 



26 



of Mentone," which stand out so picturesquely one 
above the other, visible in profile far to the east and the 
west on the sharp angle of the hill. 

" The different use of the same word in different lan- 
guages is droll," said Margaret. " French writers al- 
most always speak of these little country church-spires 
as ' coquettes.' " 

" There is a Turkish lance here somewhere," said In- 
ness, emerging unexpectedly from what I had thought 
was a cellar. "It is in one of these churches. It was 
taken at the battle of Lepanto, and is a ' glorious relic' 
We must see it." 

" No," said Janet, appearing with Baker at the top of 
a flight of steps which I had supposed was the back 
entrance of a private house, " we will not see it, but im- 
agine it. I want to go homeward by the Rue Longue." 

" Now, Janet, if you mean those dancing-dogs — " be- 
gan Mrs. Trescott. 

" I had forgotten their very existence, mamma. I 
was thinking of something quite different." Here she 
turned towards the Professor. " I was hoping that Pro- 
fessor Mackenzie would feel like telling me something 
of Mentone in the past, as we walk through that quaint 
old street." 

" He feels like it — feels like it day and night," said 
Baker to Inness, behind me. " He's a perfect statistics 
Niagara." 

" Look at him now, gorged with joy !" said Inness, 
indignantly. " But I'll floor him yet, and on his own 
ground, too. I'll study up, and then we'll see I" 

But the Professor, not hearing this threat, had already 
begun, and begun (for him) quite gayly. " The origin 
of Mentone, Miss Trescott, has been attributed to the 
pirates, and also to Hercules." 

" I have always been so interested in Hercules," re- 
plied that young person. 





0.i^:;„: 




"to italy" — pont st. louis 



29 



" Mythical — mythical," said the Professor. "I merely 
mentioned it as one of the legends. To come down to 
facts — always much more impressive to a rightly dis- 
posed mind — the first mention of Mentone, per se, on 
the authentic page of history, occurs in the eighth cen- 
tury. In a.d. 975 it belonged to the Lascaris, Counts 
of Ventimiglia, a family of royal origin and Greek de- 
scent." 

" Are there any of them left ?" inquired Janet. 

" I really do not know," replied the Professor, who 
was not interested in that branch of the subject. " In 
the fourteenth century the village passed into the pos- 
session of the Grimaldi family, Princes of Monaco, and 
they held it, legally at least, until 1860, when it was at- 
tached to France." 

" He is really quite Cyclopean in his information," 
murmured Mrs. Trescott. 

But the Professor had now discovered Inness, who, 
with an expression of deepest interest on his face, was 
walking close at his heels, and writing as he walked in 
a note-book. 

" What are you doing, sir ?" said the Professor, in 
his college tone. 

" Taking notes," replied Inness, respectfully. " Miss 
Trescott may feel willing to trust her memory, but / 
wish to preserve your remarks for future reference," and 
he went on with his writing. 

The Professor looked at him sharply, but the youth's 
face remained immovable, and he went on. 

"These three little towns, then, Mentone, Roccabruna, 
and Monaco, have belonged to the Princes of Monaco 
since the early Middle Ages." 

" Those dear Middle Ages !" said Mrs. Clary. 

The Professor gravely looked at her, and then re- 
peated his phrase, as if linking together his remarks 
over her unimportant head. " As I observed — the early 



30 



Middle Ages. But in 1848 Mentone and Roccabruna, 
unable longer to endure the tyranny of their rulers, re- 
volted and declared their independence. The Prince at 
that time lived in Paris, knew little of his subjects, and 
apparently cared less, save to get from them through 
agents as much income as possible for his Parisian lux- 
uries." (Impossible to describe the accent which our 
Puritan Professor gave to those two words.) " His lit- 
tle territory produced only olives, oranges, and lemons. 
By his order the oranges and lemons were taxed so 
heavily that the poor peasant owner made nothing from 
his toil ; his olives, also, must be ground at the ' Prince's 
mill,' where a higher price was demanded than else- 
where. Finally an even more odious monopoly was 
established : all subjects were compelled to purchase 
the ' Prince's bread,' which, made from cheap grain 
bought on the docks of Marseilles and Genoa, was often 
unfit to eat. So severe were the laws that any traveller 
entering the principality must throw away at the boun- 
dary line all bread he might have with him, and the cap- 
tain of a vessel having on board a single slice upon 
arrival in port was heavily fined. This state of things 
lasted twenty-five years, during which period the Prince 
in Paris spent annually his eighty thousand dollars, 
gained from this poor little domain of eight or nine 
thousand souls." The Professor in his heat stood still, 
and we all stood still with him. The Mentonnais, look- 
ing down from their high windows and up from their 
dark little doors, no doubt wondered what we were talk- 
ing about ; they little knew it was their own story. 

" A revolution made by bread. And ours was made 
by tea," observed Janet, thoughtfully. 

" We need now only one made by butter, to be com- 
plete," said Inness. 

Again the Professor scrutinized him, but discovered 
nothing. 







THE PALMS OF BORDIGHERA 



33 



/, however, discovered something-, although not from 
Inness ; I discovered why Janet had wished to pass a 
second time through that Rue Longue. For here was 
the French artist sketching* the old mansion, and with 
him (she could not have known this, of course ; but 
chance always favored Janet) were the two Englishmen, 
the respectful gazers of the breakfast-table, sketching 
also. There were therefore six artistic eyes instead of 
two to dwell upon her as she approached, passed, and 
went onward, her slender figure outlined against the 
light coming through the archway beyond, old St. 
Julian's Gate, a remnant of feudal fortification. Artists 
are not slack in the use of their eyes; an "artistic 
gaze " is not considered a stare. I was obliged to re- 
peat this axiom to Baker, who did not appreciate it, but 
looked as though he would like to go back and artis- 
tically demolish those gazers. He contented himself, 
however, with the remark that water-color sketches were 
11 weak, puling daubs," and then he went on through 
the old archway as majestically as he could. 

" One of the features of Mentone seems to be the 
number of false windows carefully painted on the out- 
side of the houses, windows adorned with blinds, mus- 
lin curtains, pots of flowers, and even gay rugs hanging 
over the sill," said Margaret. 

"And then the frescos," I added — "landscapes, 
trees, gods and goddesses, in the most brilliant colors, 
on the side of the house." 

" / like it," said Mrs. Clary ; " it is so tropical." 

" You commend falsity, then," said Miss Graves. 
" What can be more false than a false rug ?" 

We went homeward by the sea-wall, and saw some 
boys coming up from the beach with a basket of sea- 
urchins. " They eat them, you know," said Mrs. 
Clary. 

" Is that tropical too ?" said Janet, shuddering. 
3 



34 



" It is, after all, but a difference in custom," observed 
the Professor. " I myself have eaten puppies in China, 
and found them not unpalatable." 

Janet surveyed him ; then fell behind and joined 
Inn ess and Baker. 

Some fishermen on the beach were talking to two 
women with red handkerchiefs on their heads, who 
were leaning over the sea-wall. " Their language is a 
strange patois," said the Professor ; " it is composed 
of a mixture of Italian, French, Spanish, and even Ar- 
abic." 

"But the people themselves are thoroughly Italian, I 
think, in spite of the French boundary line," said Mar- 
garet. "They are a handsome race, with their dark 
eyes, thick hair, and rich coloring." 

" I have never bestowed much thought upon beauty 
per se" responded the Professor. " The imperishable 
mind has far more interest." 

" How much of the imperishable M. do you possess, 
Miss Trescott?" I heard Inness murmur. 

" Breakfast " was served at one o'clock in the large 
dining-room, and we found ourselves opposite the two 
English artists, and a young lady whom they called 
" Miss Elaine." 

" Elaine is bad enough ; but ' Miss Elaine ' !" said 
Margaret aside to me. 

However, Miss Elaine seemed very well satisfied with 
herself and her Tennysonian title. She was a short, 
plump blonde, with a high color, and I could see that 
she regarded Janet with pity as she noted her slender 
proportions and delicate complexion in the one ex- 
haustive glance with which girls survey each other 
when they first meet. We were some time at the table, 
but during the first five minutes both of the artists 
succeeded in offering some slight service to Mrs. Tres- 
cott which gave an opportunity for opening a conversa- 



35 



tion. The taller of the two, called " Yerney " by his 
friend, advised for the afternoon an expedition up the 
Cornice Road to the "Pont St. Louis," and on " to Italy." 

"But that will be too far, will it not?" said Mrs. 
Trescott. 

" Oh no ; to Italy ! to Italy !" said Janet, with en- 
thusiasm. Verney now explained that Italy was but 
ten minutes' walk from the hotel, and Janet was, of 
course, duly astonished. But not more astonished than 
the Professor, who, having told her the same fact not a 
half-hour before, could not comprehend how she should 
so soon have forgotten it. 

" And if we are but ' ten minutes' walk from Italy ' 
— a phrase so often repeated — what of it ?" said Miss 
Graves to Margaret. " We are simply ten minutes' 
walk from a most uncleanly land." Miss Graves always 
wore a gray worsted shawl, and took no wine ; in spite 
of the sunshine, therefore, she preserved a frosty ap- 
pearance. 

After breakfast Miss Elaine introduced herself to 
Mrs. Trescott. She had met some Americans the year 
before ; they were charming ; they were from Brazil ; 
perhaps we knew them ? She had always felt ever 
since that all Americans were her dear, dear friends. 
She had an invalid mother up-stairs (sharing her good 
opinion of Americans) who would be "very pleased" 
to make our acquaintance ; and hearing Pont St. Louis 
mentioned, she assured Janet that it was a " very jolly 
place — very jolly indeed." It ended in our going to 
the " jolly place," accompanied by the two artists and 
Miss Elaine herself, who smiled upon us all, upon the 
rocks, the sky, and the sea, in the most amiable and 
continuous manner. This time we were not all on foot ; 
one of the loose-jointed little Mentone phaetons, with a 
great deal of driver and whip and very little horse, had 
been engaged for Mrs. Trescott and Margaret. This 



36 



left Mrs. Clary and myself together (Miss Graves hav- 
ing remained at home), and Inness, Baker, the Profes- 
sor, Verney, and the other artist, whose name was 
Lloyd, all trying to walk with Janet, while Miss Elaine 
devoted herself in turn to the unsuccessful ones, and 
never from first to last perceived the real situation. 

We went eastward. Presently we passed a small 
house bearing the following naive inscription in French 
on the side towards the road : " The first villa built at 
Mentone, in 1855, to attract hither the strangers. The 
sun, the sea, and the soft air combined are benefactions 
bestowed upon us by the good God. Thanks be to 
Him, therefore, for His mercies in thus favoring us." 

" Mentone is said to have been ' discovered by the 
English' in 1857," said Mrs. Clary. "Dr. Bennet, the 
London physician, may be called its real discoverer, as 
Lord Brougham was the discoverer of Cannes. From 
a sleepy, unknown little Riviera village it has grown 
into the winter resort we now see, with fifty hotels 
and two hundred villas full of strangers from all parts 
of the world." 

The Professor was discoursing upon the climate. " It 
is very beneficial to all whose lungs are delicate," he 
said. " Also " (checking off the different classes on 
his fingers) " to the aged, to those who need general 
renovating, to the rheumatic, and to those afflicted 
with gout." 

" Where, then, do I come in ?" said Janet, sweetly, 
as he finished the left hand. 

" Nowhere," answered the Professor, meaning to be 
gallant, but not quite succeeding. Perceiving this, he 
added, slowly, and with solemnity, " But the fair and 
healthy flower should be willing to shine upon the less 
endowed for the pure beneficence of the act." 

Baker and Inness sat down on the sea-wall behind 
him to recover from this. The two Englishmen were 



39 



equally amused, although Miss Elaine, who was walk- 
ing with them, did not discover it. However, Miss 
Elaine seldom discovered anything save herself. We 
nOw began to ascend, passing between the high walls 
of villa gardens along a smooth, broad, white road. 

" This is the Cornice," said Mrs. Clary ; " it winds 
along this coast from Marseilles to Genoa." 

" From Nice to Genoa," said the Professor, turning 
to correct her. But by turning he lost his place. 
Inness slipped into it, and not only that, but into his 
information also. In the leisure hour or two before 
and after " breakfast," Inness had carried out his threat 
of " studying up," and we soon became aware of it. 

" The genius of Napoleon, Miss Trescott," he began, 
" caused this wonderful road to spring from the bosom 
of the mighty rock." 

"Before it there was no road, only a mule track," 
said the Professor from behind. 

" I beg your pardon," said Inness, suavely, " but 
there was a road, the old Roman way, called Via Julia 
Augusta, traces of which are still to be seen at more 
than one point in this neighborhood." 

" Ah !" said the Professor, surprised by this unex- 
pected antiquity, "you are going back to the Roman 
period. I have omitted that." 

"But I have not," replied Inness. "The Romans 
were a remarkable people, and all their relics are pene- 
trated with the profoundest interest for me. I am 
aware, however, that other minds are more modern," 
he added, carelessly, with an air of patronage, which 
so delighted Baker that he fell behind to conceal it. 

" The Cornichy, Miss Trescott, as we pronounce the 
Italian word (Corniche in French), is almost our own 
word cornice," pursued Inness, "meaning a shelf or 
ledge along the side of the mountain. It was begun by 
Napoleon, and has been finished by the energy of sue- 



40 



cessive governments since the death of that wonderful 
man, who was all governments in one." 

" You surprise me," said Janet, breaking into laugh- 
ter. 

" Not more than you do me," I said, joining her. 

The Professor (who had rather neglected the Cornice 
in his Cyclopean information) gazed at us inquiringly, 
surprised at our merriment. 

" The best description of the Cornice, I think, is the 
one in Ruffini's novel called Doctor Antonio" said Mrs. 
Clary. " The scene is laid at Bordighera, you know, 
that little white town on the eastern point so conspicu- 
ous from Mentone. Of course you all remember Doc- 
tor Antonio?" 

Presently our road wound around a curve, and we 
came upon a wild gorge, spanned by a bridge with a 
sentinel's box at each end ; one side was France and the 
other Italy. The bridge, the official boundary line be- 
tween the two countries, is a single arch thrown across 
the gorge, which is singularly stern, great masses of 
bare gray rock rising perpendicularly hundreds of feet 
into the air, with a little rill of water trickling down on 
one side, trying to create a tiny line of verdure. Be- 
low was an old aqueduct on arches, which the Professor 
hastened to say was " Roman." 

" The Romans must have been enormous drinkers of 
water," observed Baker, as we looked down. "The 
first thing they made in every conquered country was an 
aqueduct. What could have given the name to Roman 
punch?" 

" Do you see that narrow track cut in the face of the 
rock ?" said Mrs. Clary, pointing out a line crossing one 
side of the gorge at a dizzy height. " It is a little path 
beside a watercourse, and so narrow that in some places 
there is not room for one's two feet. The wall of rock 
rises, as you see, perpendicularly hundreds of feet on 



41 



one side, and falls away hundreds of feet perpendicu- 
larly on the other ; there is nothing to hold on by, and 
in addition the glancing motion of the little stream, 
running rapidly downhill along the edge, makes the 
path still more dizzy. Yet the peasants coming down 
from Ciotti — a village above us — use it, as it shortens 
the distance to town. And there are those among the 
strangers too who try it, generally, I must confess, of 
our race. The French and Italians say, with a shrug, 
1 It is only the English and Americans who enjoy such 
risks.'" 

" It does not look so narrow," said Janet. Then, as 
we exclaimed, she added, " I mean, not wide enough 
for one's two feet." 

" Feet," remarked Inness, in a general way, as if ad- 
dressing the gorge, " are not all of the same size." 

We happened to be standing in a row, with our backs 
against the southern parapet of the bridge, looking up 
at the little path ; the result was that eighteen feet were 
plainly visible on the white dust of the bridge, and, 
naturally enough, at Inness's speech eighteen eyes looked 
downward and noted them. There were the Professor's 
boots, the laced shoes of the younger men, the comfort- 
able foot-gear of Mrs. Clary and myself, the broad sub- 
stantial soles of Miss Elaine, and a certain dainty little 
pair of high-arched, high-heeled boots, which, small as 
they were, were yet quite large enough for the pretty 
feet they contained. I thought Miss Elaine would be 
vexed ; but no, not at all. It never occurred to Miss 
Elaine to doubt the perfection of any of her attributes. 
But now Mrs. Trescott's phaeton, which had started 
later, reached the bridge, and the gorge, path, and aque- 
duct had to be explained to her. Lloyd undertook 
this. 

" I wonder how many girls have thrown themselves 
off that rock ?" said Janet, gazing at an isolated peak, 



shaped like a sugar-loaf, which stood alone within the 
ravine. 

" What a holocaust you imagine, Miss Trescott !" 
said Verney. " How could they climb up there, to be- 
gin with ?" 

" I do not know. But they always do. I have nev- 
er known a rock of that kind which has succeeded in 
evading them," answered Janet. "They generally call 
them ' Lovers' Leaps.' " 

After a while we went on "to Italy," passing the 
square Italian custom-house perched on its cliff, and 
following the road by the little Garibaldi inn, and on 
towards the point of Mortola. 

" This is the Italian frontier," said Verney. " In old 
times, during the Prince's reign, no one could leave the 
domain without buying a passport ; any one, there- 
fore, who wished to take an afternoon walk was 
obliged to have one. But things are altered now in 
Menton." 

" Are we to call the place Menton or Mentone ?" 
asked Janet. " We might as well come to some de- 



cision." 



" Menton is correct," said the Professor ; " it is now 
a French town." 

" Oh no ! let us keep to the dear old names, and say 
Men-to-ne," said Mrs. Clary. 

" I have even heard it pronounced to rhyme with 
bone," said Verney, smiling. Inness and Baker now 
looked at each other, and fell behind, but after a few 
minutes they came forward again, and, advancing to 
the front, faced us, and delivered the following epic : 



Inness : 



What shall we call thee? Shall we give our own 
Plain English vowels to thee, fair Mentone?" 



<fjf%^ A > 




THE PROFESSOR DISCOURSES 



45 



Baker : 



" Or shall we yield thee back thy patrimony, 
The lost Italian sweetness of Mentone?" 

Iiiness : 

" Or, with French aocent, and the n's half gone, 
Try the Parisian syllables — Men-ton?" 

We all applauded their impromptu. The Professor, 
seeing that poetry held the field, walked apart musing- 
ly. I think he was trying to recall, but without suc- 
cess, an appropriate Latin quotation. 

The view from the point above Mortola is very beau- 
tiful. On the west, Mentone with its three spires, the 
green of Cap Martin ; and beyond, the bold dark fore- 
head of the Dog's Head rising above Monaco. 

"Do you see that blue line of coast?" said Yerney. 
" That is the island where lived the Man with the Iron 
Mask." 

"Bazaine was confined there also," said the Pro- 
fessor. 

But none of us cared for Bazaine. We began to 
talk about the Mask, and then diverged to Kaspar Hau- 
ser, finally ending with Eleazer AYilliams, of " Have we 
a Bourbon among us ?" who had to be explained to the 
Englishmen. It was some time before we came back 
to the view ; but all the while there it was before us, 
and we were unconsciously enjoying it. On the east 
was, first, the little village of Mortola at our feet ; then 
fortified Yentimiglia ; and beyond, Bordighera, gleam- 
ing whitely on its low point out in the blue sea. 

" Blanche Bordighera," said Mrs. Clary ; " it is to me 
like paradise — always silvery and fair. No matter 
where you go, there it is ; whether you look from Cap 
Martin or St. Agnese, from Ciotti or Roccabruna, you 
can always see Bordighera shining in the sunlight. 



46 



Even when there is a mist, so that Mentone itself is 
veiled and Ventimiglia lost, Bordighera can be seen 
gleaming whitely through. And finally you end by not 
wanting to go there ; you dread spoiling the vision by a 
less fair reality, and you go away, leaving it unvisited, 
but carrying with you the remembrance of its shining 
and its feathery palms." 

" Is it palmy ?" ashed Janet. 

" There are probably now more palms at Bordighera 
than in the Holy Land itself," said Vernej'", who had 
wound himself into a place beside her. I say " wound," 
because Verney was so long and lithe that he could slip 
gracefully into places which other men could not ob- 
tain. Lloyd was not with us. He had not left his post 
of duty beside the phaeton, which was coming slowly 
up the hill behind us ; but I noticed that he had select- 
ed Margaret's side of it. 

" Palms would grow at Mentone, or at any other 
sheltered spot on this coast," said the Professor, at last 
abandoning the obstinate quotation, and coming back 
to the present. "But the cultivation is not remunerative 
save at Bordighera, where they own the monopoly of 
supplying the palm branches used on Palm-Sunday at 
Rome." 

" Excuse me," said Inness; " but I think you did not 
mention the origin of that monopoly ?" 

" A monkish legend," said the Professor, contemptu- 
ously. 

" In those days everything was monkish," replied In- 
ness ; " architecture, knowledge, and religion. If we 
had lived then, no doubt we should all have been 
monks." 

" Ah, yes !" said Miss Elaine, fervently. " Do tell us 
the legend, Mr. Inness. I adore legends, especially if 
ecclesiastical." 

"Well," said Inness, "a good while ago — in 1586 — 



47 



the Pope decided to raise and place upon a pedestal an 
Egyptian obelisk, which, transported to Rome by Calig- 
ula, had been left lying neglected upon the ground. 
An apparatus was constructed to lift the huge block, and 
with the aid of one hundred and fifty horses and nine 
hundred men it was raised, poised, and then let down 
slowly towards its position, amid the breathless silence 
of a multitude, when suddenly it was seen that the ropes 
on one side failed to bring it into place. All, including 
the engineer in charge, stood stupefied with alarm, when 
a voice from the crowd called out, ' Wet the ropes !' It 
was done ; the ropes shortened ; the obelisk reached its 
place in safety. The Pope sent for the man whose 
timely advice had saved the lives of many, and asked 
him what reward would please him most. He was a 
simple countryman, and with much timidity he answered 
that he lived at Bordighera, and that if the palms of 
Bordighera could be used in Rome on Holy Palm-Sun- 
day he should die happy. His wish was granted," con- 
cluded Inness, " and — he died." 

" I hope not immediately," I said, laughing. 

On our way back, Verney showed us a path leading 
up the cliff. " Let me give you a glimpse of a lovely 
garden," he said. We looked up, and there it was on 
the cliff above us, like the hanging gardens of Baby- 
lon, green terraces clothing the bare gray rock with 
beautiful verdure. Margaret left the phaeton and went 
up the winding path with us, Mrs. Trescott and Mrs. 
Clary remaining below. The gate of the garden, which 
bore the inscription "Salvete Amici," opened upon a 
long columned walk ; from pillar to pillar over our 
heads ran climbing vines, and on each side were ranks 
of rare and curious plants, the lovely wild flowers of 
the country having their place also among the costlier 
blossoms. " Before you go farther turn and look at the 
tower," said Verney. " It has been made habitable 



48 



within, but otherwise it is unchanged. It was built 
either as a lookout in which to keep watch for the Sar- 
acens, or else by the Saracens themselves when they 
held the coast." 

" By the Sarrasins themselves, of course — always 
with two r's," said Janet. "Think of it — a Sarrasin 
tower ! I would rather own it than anything else in 
the whole world." 

Whereupon Verney, Inness, the Professor, Lloyd, and 
Baker all wished to know what she would do with it. 

" Do with it ?" repeated Janet. " Live in it, of course. 
I have always had the greatest desire to live in a tower ; 
even light-houses tempt me." 

" I shall tell Dr. Bennet," said Verney, laughing. 
" This is his garden, you know." 

At the end of the columned walk we went around a 
curve by a smaller tower, and descended to a lower 
path bordered with miniature groves of hyacinth, whose 
dense sweetness, mingled with that of heliotrope, filled 
the air. Here Margaret seated herself to enjoy the 
fragrance and sunshine, while we went onward, com- 
ing to a magnificent array of primulas, rank upon rank, 
in every shade of delicate and gorgeous coloring, a 
pomp of tints against a background of ferns. Below 
was a little vine-covered terrace with thick, soft, Eng- 
lish grass for its velvet flooring ; here was another par- 
adisiacal little seat, like the one where we had left Mar- 
garet, overlooking the blue sea. On terraces above 
were camellias, roses, and numberless other blossoms, 
mingled with tropical plants and curious growths of 
cacti ; behind was a lemon grove rising a little higher ; 
then the background of gray rocks from which all this 
beauty had been won inch by inch ; then the great 
peaks of the mountain amphitheatre against the sky — 
in all, beauty enough for a thousand gardens here con- 
centrated in one enchanting spot. 



51 



" That picturesque village on the height is Grimaldi," 
said Verney. 

11 The original home of the clowns, I suppose," said 
Baker. 

" English and Americans always say that ; they can 
never think of anything but the great circus Hamlet," 
replied Verney. " In reality, however, Grimaldi is one 
of the oldest of the noble names on this coast — the 
family name of the Princes of Monaco." 

" Who are worse than clowns," said the Professor, 
sternly. " The Grimaldi who was a clown at least hon- 
estly earned his bread, but the Grimaldis of the present 
day live by the worst dishonesty. Monaco, formerly 
called the Port of Hercules, may now well be called the 
Port of Hell." 

" Well," said Inness, " if Monaco, on one side of us, 
represents l'lnferno, Bordighera, on the other, repre- 
sents Paradiso, and so we are saved." 

" It depends upon which way you go, young man," 
said the Professor, still sternly. 

After a while we came back to the bench among the 
hyacinths where we had left Margaret, and found Lloyd 
with her, looking at the sea ; the lovely garden over- 
hangs the sea, whose beautiful near blue closes every 
blossoming vista. It had been decided that we were to 
go homeward by way of the Bone Caverns, and as Mrs. 
Trescott was fond of bones, and wished to see their 
abode, I offered to remain and drive home with Mar- 
garet. 

" Let me accompany Miss Severin," said Lloyd. " I 
have seen the caverns, and do not care to see them 
again." 

I looked at Margaret, thinking she would object ; 
she seldom cared for the society of strangers. But in 
some way Mr. Lloyd no longer seemed a stranger ; he 
had crossed the numerous little barriers which she kept 



52 



erected between herself and the outside world, crossed 
them probably without even seeing them. But none 
the less were they crossed. 

So we left them in the sunny garden to return home- 
ward at their leisure, and, descending to the road, went 
eastward a short distance, and turned down a narrow 
path leading to the beach. It brought us under the 
enormous mass of the Red Rocks, rising perpendicu- 
larly three hundred feet from the water. Inness, who 
was in advance, had paused on a little bridge of one arch 
over a hollow, and was holding it, as it were, when we 
came up. " Behold a fragment of the ancient Roman 
way, Via Julia Augusta," he began, introducing the 
bridge with a wave of his cane. "When we think of 
this road in the past, what visions rise in the mind — 
visions like — like mists on the mountain-tops floating 
away, which — which merge in each other at dawning 
of day ! In comparison with the ancient Romans, the 
builders of this bridge, Hercules, the Lascaris, even the 
Sarrasins (always with two r's), are nowhere. Roman 
feet touched this very archway upon which my own 
unworthy shoes now stand." 

We looked at his shoes with respect, the Professor 
(who had gone onward to the Bone Caverns) not being 
there to contradict. 

" The Romans," continued Inness, " never stayed long. 
They dropped here a tomb, there an aqueduct, and then 
moved on. They were the first great pedestrians. We 
cannot see them, but we can imagine them. As Pope 
well says, 

" ' While fancy brings the vanished piles to view, 
And builds imaginary Rome anew.'" 

" Ah, yes," said Mrs. Trescott, " the Romans, the 
Romans, how dreamy they were ! They always remind 
me of those lines : 



53 



" ' Then sing, ye birds, sing, sing a joyous song ! 
And let the young lambs bound 
As to the tabor's sound, 
The primal sympathy, 
Which, having been, must ever be !' " 



This finished the bridge. As we had no idea what 
she meant, even Inness deserted it, and we all went on- 
ward to the Bone Caverns. The caverns were dark 
hollows in the cliff some distance above the road. 
From the entrance of one of them issued a cloud of 
dust ; the Professor was in there digging. 

" Let us ascend at once," said Mrs. Trescott, enthu- 
siastically. " I wish to stand in the very abode of the 
primitive man." 

But it was something of a task to get her up ; there 
was always a great deal of loose drapery about Mrs. 
Trescott, which had a way of catching on everything 
far and near. With her veil, her plumes, her lace 
shawl, her long watch-chain, her dangling fan, her belt 
bag and scent bottle, her parasol and basket, it was dif- 
ficult to get her safely through any narrow or bushy 
place. But to-day Yerney gallantly undertook the 
feat : he knew the advantages of propitiating the higher 
powers. 

Men were quarrying the face of the Red Rocks at a 
dizzy height, hanging suspended in mid-air by ropes in 
order to direct the blasting ; below, the patient horses 
were waiting to convey the great blocks of stone to the 
town, and destroy, by their daily procession, the last 
traces of the Julia Augusta. 

" I hope these rocks are porphyry," said Janet, gaz- 
ing upward ; " it is such a lovely name." 

11 Yes, they are," said the unblushing Inness. " The 
Troglodytes, whose homes are beneath, were fond of 
porphyry. They were very aesthetic, you know." 



54 



We now reached the entrance of one of the caverns 
and looked in. 

" The Troglodytes," continued Inness, " were the 
original, really original, proprietors of Mentone. They 
lived here, clad in bear-skins, and their voices are said 
to have been not sweet. See Pliny and Strabo. The 
bones of their dinners left here, and a few of their own 
(untimely deaths from fighting with each other for 
more), have now become the most precious treasures of 
the scientific world, equalling in richness the never- to- 
be - sufficiently - prized - and - investigated kitchen refuse 
of the Swiss lakes." 

But the Professor, overhearing something of this 
frivolity at the sacred door, emerged from the hole in 
which he had been digging, and, covered with dust, 
but rich in the possession of a ball and socket joint of 
some primeval animal, came to the entrance, and forci- 
bly, if not by force, addressed us : 

" At a recent period it has been discovered that these 
five caverns in this limestone rock — " 

" Alas, my porphyry !" murmured Janet. 

" — contain bones of animals mixed with flint instru- 
ments imbedded in sand. The animals were the food 
and the flint instruments the weapons of a race of men 
who must have existed far back in prehistoric times. 
This was a rich discovery ; but a richer was to come. 
In 1872 a human skeleton, all but perfect, a skeleton of 
a tall man, was discovered in the fourth cavern, sur- 
rounded by bones which prove its great antiquity — 
which prove, in fact, almost beyond a doubt, that it be- 
longed to — the — Paleolithic epoch /" And the Profes- 
sor paused, really overcome by the tremendous power 
of his own words. 

But I am afraid we all gazed stupidly enough, first 
at him, then into the cave, then at him again, with only 
the vaguest idea of " Paleolithic's " importance. I 



57 



must except Verney ; he knew more. But he had gone 
inside, and was now digging in the hole in his turn to 
find flints for Janet. 

Mrs. Trescott, who was our bone - master (she had 
studied anatomy, and highly admired " form "), asked 
if the skeleton had been " painted in oils." 

Miss Elaine hoped that they buried it again " rever- 
ently," and " in consecrated ground." 

The Professor gazed at them in turn ; he literally 
could not find a word for reply. 

Then I, coming to the rescue, said : " I am very dull, 
I know, but pity my dulness, and tell me why the skel- 
eton was so important, and how they knew it was so 
old." 

The poor man, overcome by such crass ignorance, 
gazed at his ball and socket joint and at our group 
in silence. Then, in a spiritless voice, he said, " The 
bones surrounding the skeleton were those of animals 
now extinct — animals that existed at a period hereto- 
fore supposed to have been before that of man; but 
by their presence here they prove a contemporary, and 
we therefore know that he existed at a much earlier 
age of the world's history than we had imagined." 

Verney now gave Janet the treasures he had found 
— some pieces of flint about an inch long, rudely point- 
ed at one end. " These," he said, " are the knives of 
the primitive man." 

" They are very disappointing," said Janet, surveying 
them as they lay in the palm of her slender gray glove, 
buttoned half-way to the elbow. 

"Did you expect carved handles and steel blades?" 
I said, smiling. 

" And here are some nummulites," pursued Verney, 
taking a quantity of the round coin-like shells from his 
pocket. " You might have a necklace made, with the 
nummulites above and the flints below as pendants." 



58 



"And label it prehistoric; it would be quite as at- 
tractive as preraphaelite," said Inness. " I don't know 
what you think," he continued, turning to Verney, 
" but to me there is nothing so ugly as the way some 
of the girls — generally the tall ones — are getting them- 
selves up nowadays in what they call the preraphaelite 
style — a general effect of awkward lankness as to shape 
and gown, a classic fillet, hair to the eyebrows, and a 
gait not unlike that which would be produced by hav- 
ing the arms tied together behind at the elbows. If 
your Botticelli is responsible for this, his canvases 
should be demolished." 

Verney laughed ; he was at heart, I think, a strong 
preraphaelite both of the present and the past ; but 
how could he avow it when a reality so charming and 
at the same time so unlike that type stood beside him ? 
Janet's costumes were not at all preraphaelite ; they 
were American-French. 

We left the Red Rocks, and went slowly onward 
along the sea-shore towards home. Miss Elaine, having 
first taken me aside to ask if I thought it " quite prop- 
er," had challenged Inness to a rapid walk, and soon 
carried him away from us and out of sight. On our 
way we passed the St. Louis brook, where the laundress- 
es were at work in two rows along the stream, each 
kneeling at the edge in a broad open basket like a boat, 
and bending over the low pool, alternately soaping and 
beating her clothes with a flat wooden mallet. It was 
a picturesque sight — the long rows of figures in bas- 
kets, the heads decked with bright -colored handker- 
chiefs. But to a housewifely mind like my own the 
idea which most forcibly presented itself was the 
small amount of water. Of a celebrated trout fisher- 
man it was once said that all he required was a 
little damp spot, and forthwith he caught a trout; 
and the Mentone laundresses seem tcr consider that 



59 



only a little damp spot is needed for their daily 
labors. 

But in truth they cannot help themselves : the cry- 
ing fault of Mentone is the want of water. A spring is 
more precious than the land itself, and is divided be- 
tween different proprietors for stated periods of each 
day. The poor little rills do a dozen tasks before they 
reach the laundresses and the beach. The beautiful 
terrace vegetation which clothes the sides of the moun- 
tains is supported by an elaborate and costly system of 
tanks and watercourses which would dishearten an 
American proprietor at the outset. The Mentone laun- 
dresses work "for wages which a New World laundress 
would scorn ; but there is one marked difference be- 
tween them and between all the French and Italian 
working-people and those of America, and that is that 
among these foreigners there seems to be not one too 
poor to have his daily bottle of wine. We saw the 
necks of these bottles peeping from the rough dinner- 
baskets of the laundresses, and afterwards from those 
also of the quarry-men, vine-dressers, olive-pickers, and 
lemon-gatherers. It was an inexpensive "wine of the 
country " ; still, it was wine. 

The sun was now sinking into the water, and exqui- 
site hues were stealing over the soft sea. The pictu- 
resque Mediterranean boats with lateen-sails were com- 
ing towards home, and one whose little sail was crimson 
made a lovely picture on the water. At the sea-wall 
we met Miss Graves gloomily taking a walk, and pres- 
ently the phaeton with Margaret and Lloyd stopped 
near us as we stood looking at the hues. Two ships in 
the distance sailed first on blue w 7 ater, then on rose, on 
lilac, on purple, violet, and gold. Over the sea fell a 
pink flush, met on the horizon by salmon in a broad 
band, then next above it amber, then violet edged with 
rose, and higher still a zone of clear pale green bordered 




A MEDITERRANEAN BOAT 



with gold. At the same moment the Red Rocks were 
flooded with rose light which extended in a lovely flush 
up the high gray peaks behind far in the sky, lingering 
there when all the lower splendor was gone, and the sea 
and shore veiled in dusky twilight gray. 

" It is almost as beautiful at sunrise," said Mrs. Clary ; 
" and then, too, you can see the Fairy Island." 

" What is that ?" I asked. 

" Never mind what it is in reality," answered Mrs. 
Clary. " I consider it enchanted — the Fortunate Land, 
whose shores and mountain-peaks can be seen only be- 
tween dawn and sunrise, when they loom up distinctly, 



61 



soon fading away, however, mysteriously into the in- 
creasing daylight, and becoming entirely invisible when 
the sun appears.'' 

" I saw it this morning," said Miss Graves, soberly. 
" It is only Corsica." 

" Brigands and vendetta," said Inness. 

" Napoleon," said all the rest of us. 

" My idea of it is much the best," said Mrs. Clary ; 
"it is Fairy-land, the lost Isles of the Blest." 

After that each morning at breakfast the question al- 
ways was, who had seen Corsica. And a vast amount 
of ingenious evasion was displayed in the answers. 
However, I did see it once. It rose from the water on 
the southeastern horizon, its line of purple mountain- 
peaks and low shore so distinctly visible that it seemed 
as if one could take the little boat with the crimson 
sail and be over there in an hour, although it was nine- 
ty miles away; but while I gazed it faded slowly, melt- 
ed, as it were, into the gold of the awakening day. 

The weeks passed, and we rode, drove, walked, and 
climbed hither and thither, looking at the carouba- 
trees, the stiff pyramidal cypresses, the euphorbias in 
woody bushes five feet high, the great planes, the gro- 
tesque naked figs, the aloes and oleanders growing wild, 
and the fantastic shapes of the cacti. We searched for 
ferns, finding the rusty ceterach, the little trichomanes, 
and Adiantum nigrum, but especially the exquisite 
maiden -hair of the delicate variety called Capillus 
veneris, which fringed every watercourse and bank and 
rock where there is the least moisture with its lovely 
green fretwork. There is a phrase current in Mentone 
and applied to this fern, as well as to the violets which 
grow wild in rich profusion, starring the ground with 
their blue ; unthinking people say of them that they 
are " so common they become weeds." This phrase 
should be suppressed by a society for the cultivation 



62 



of good taste and the prevention of cruelty to plants. 
Ivy was everywhere, growing wild, and heather in 
bloom. 

Miss Graves was brought almost to tears one day by 
finding her old friend the wild climbing smilax of 
Florida on these Mediterranean rocks, and only recov- 
ered her self-possession because Lloyd would call it 
" sarsaparilla," and she felt herself called upon to do 
battle. But the profusion of the violets, the pomp of 
the red anemones, the perfume of the white narcissus, 
the hyacinths and sweet alyssum, all growing wild, who 
shall describe them ? There were also tulips, orchids, 
English primroses, and daisies. Even when nothing 
else could grow there was always the demure rosemary. 
Of course, too, we made close acquaintance with the 
olive and lemon, the characteristic trees of Mentone, 
whose foliage forms its verdure, and whose fruit forms 
its commerce. The orange groves were insignificant 
and the oranges sour compared with those of Florida ; 
but the olive and lemon groves were new to us, and in 
themselves beautiful and luxuriant. Our hotel stood 
on the edge of an old olive grove climbing the moun- 
tain-side slowly on broad terraces rising endlessly as 
one looked up. After some weeks' experience we 
found that we represented collectively various shades 
of opinion concerning olive groves in general, which 
may be given as follows : 

Mrs. Clary : " These old trees are to me so sacred ! 
When I walk under their great branches I always think 
of the dove bringing the leaf to the ark, of the olive 
boughs of the entry into Jerusalem, and of the Mount 
of Olives." 

The Professor : " Olives are interesting because their 
manner of growth allows them to attain an almost in- 
definite age. The trunk decays and splits, but the 
bark, which still retains its vigor, grows around the 




BRINGING LEMONS EROM THE TERRACE 



65 



dissevered portions, making, as it were, new trunks of 
them, although curved and distorted, so that three or 
four trees seem to be growing from the same root. It 
is this which gives the tree its characteristic knotted 
and gnarled appearance. This species of olive attains 
a very fine development in the neighborhood of Men- 
tone ; there are said to be trees still alive at Cap Mar- 
tin which were coeval with the Roman Empire." 

Verney : " The light in an old olive grove is beauti- 
ful and peculiar ; it is like nothing but itself. It is 
quite impossible to give on canvas the gray shade of 
the long aisles without making them dim, and they are 
not in the least dim. I have noticed, too, that the sun- 
shine never filters through sufficiently to touch the 
ground in a glancing beam, or even a single point of 
yellow light; and yet the leaves are small, and the fo- 
liage does not appear thick." 

Baker : " Olives and olive oil, the groundwork of ev- 
ery good dinner ! I wonder how much a grove would 

COStV' 

Mrs. Trescott : " How they murmur to us — like doves ! 
My one regret now is that I did not name my child Olive. 
She would then have been so Biblical." 

Inness : " I should think more of the groves if I did 
not know that they were fertilized with woollen rags, 
old boots, and bones." 

Janet : " The inside tint of the leaves would be love- 
ly for a summer costume. I have never had just that 
shade." 

Miss Graves : " Live-oak groves draped in long moss 
are much more imposing." 

Miss Elaine : " It is so jolly, you know, to sit under 
the trees with one's embroidery, and have some one 
read aloud — something sweet, like Adelaide Procter." 

Margaret : " Sitting here is like being in a great ca- 
thedral in Lent." 
5 



66 



Lloyd : " Shall we go quietly on, Miss Severin ?" 
And Lloyd, I think, had the best of it. I mean that 
he knew how to derive the most pleasure from the 
groves. This English use of " quietly," by-the-way, al- 
ways amused Margaret and myself greatly. Lloyd and 
Verney were constantly suggesting that we should go 
here or there " quietly," as though otherwise we should 
be likely to go with banners, trumpets, and drums. The 
longer one remains in Mentone, the stronger grows at- 
tachment to the olive groves. But they do not seem fit 
places for the young, whose gay voices resound through 
their gray aisles ; neither are they for the old, who need 
the cheer and warmth of the sun. But they are for the 
middle-aged, those who are beyond the joys and have 
not yet reached the peace of life, the poor, unremem- 
bered, hard-worked middle-aged. The olives of Men- 
tone are small, and used only for making oil. We saw 
them gathered ; men were beating the boughs with long- 
poles, while old women and children collected the dark 
purple berries and placed them in sacks, which the pa- 
tient donkeys bore to the mill. The oil mills are ven- 
erable and picturesque little buildings of stone, placed 
in the ravines where there is a stream of water. We 
visited one on the side hill ; its only light came from 
the open door, and its interior made a picture which 
Gerard Douw might well have painted. The great oil 
jars, the old hearth and oven, the earthen jugs, hanging 
lamps with floating* wicks, and the figures of the men 
moving about, made a picturesque scene. The fruit was 
first crushed by stone rollers, the wheel being turned 
by water-power ; the pulp, saturated with warm water, 
was then placed in flat, round rope baskets, which were 
piled one upon the other, and the whole subjected to 
strong pressure, which caused the clear yellow oil to 
exude through the meshes of the baskets, and flow 
down into the little reservoir below. 



67 



" Oar manners would become charmingly suave if we 
lived here long," said Inness. " It would be impossible 
to resist the influence of so much oil." 

The lemon terraces were as unlike the olive groves as 
a gay love song is unlike a Gregorian chant. The trees 
rose brightly and youthfully from the grassy hill-side 
steps, each leaf shining as though it was varnished, and 
the yellow globes of fruit gleaming like so much im- 
prisoned sunshine. Here was no shade, no weird gray- 
ness, but everything was either vivid gold or vivid 
green. Janet said this. 

" / am the latter, I think," said Baker, " to be caught 
here again on these terraces. I don't know what your 
experience has been, but for my part I detest them ; I 
have been lost here again and again. You get into 
them and you think it all very easy, and you keep go- 
ing on and on. You climb hopefully from one to the 
next by those narrow sidling little stone steps, only to 
find it the exact counterpart of the one you have left, 
with still another beyond. And you keep on plunging 
up and up until you are worn out. At last you meet a 
man, and you ask him something or other beginning 
with ' Purtorn '— " 

" What in the world do you mean ?" said Janet, 
breaking into laughter. 

" I am sure I don't know ; but that is what you all 
say." 

" Perhaps you mean i Peut-on,' " suggested Margaret. 

" Well, whatever I mean, the man always answers 
1 Oui,' and so I am no better off than I was before, but 
keep plunging on," said Baker, ruefully. 

But the Professor now opened a more instructive 
subject. " Lemons are the most important product of 
Mentone," he began. " As they can be kept better than 
those of Naples and Sicily, they command a large price. 
The tree flowers all the year through, and the fruit is 



gathered at four different periods. The annual pro- 
duction of lemons at Mentone is about thirty millions." 

" Thirty millions of lemons !" I said, appalled. " What 
an acid idea !" 

" The idea may be acid, but the air is not," said Mar- 
garet. " It is singularly delicious, almost intoxicating." 

And in truth there was a subtle fragrance which had 
an influence upon me, although no doubt it had much 
more upon Margaret, who was peculiarly sensitive to 
perfumes. 

" Have you heard the legend of the Mentone lem- 
ons ?" said Verney. 

" No ; what is it ? We should be very pleased to 
hear it," said Miss Elaine, throwing herself down upon 
the grass in what she considered a rural way. She was 
bestowing her smiles upon Verney that day ; she had 
mentioned to me on the way up the hill that she did 
not approve of giving too much of one's attention "to 
one especial gentleman exclusively " — it was so '* con- 
spicuous." I was smiling inwardly at this, since the 
only " conspicuous " person among us, as far as atten- 
tion to "the gentlemen " was concerned, was Miss Elaine 
herself, when I caught her glance directed towards Mar- 
garet and Lloyd. This set me to thinking. Could she 
be referring to them ? They had been much together, 
without doubt, for Margaret liked him, and he was very 
kind to her. My poor Margaret, she was very precious, 
to me ; but to others she was only a pale, careworn 
woman, silent, quiet, and no longer young. With the 
remembrance of Miss Elaine's words in my mind, I now 
looked around for Margaret as we sat down on the 
grass to hear Verney's legend ; but she had strolled off 
down the long green and gold aisle with Lloyd. 

" Miss Severin is so well informed that she does not 
care for our simple little amusements," said Miss Elaine, 
in her artless way. 



Ufe*^ 




0>" THE WAY TO L' ANNUNZIATA 



71 



" Once upon a time, as we all know," began Verney, 
" Adam and Eve were banished from the garden of 
Paradise. Poor Eve, sobbing, put up her hand jnst be- 
fore passing through the gate and plucked a lemon from 
the last tree beside the angel. The two then wandered 
through the world together, wandered far and wide, 
and at last, following the shores of the Mediterranean, 
they came to Mentone. Here the sea was so blue, the 
sunshine so bright, and the sky so cloudless, that Eve 
planted her treasured fruit. ' Go, little seed,' she said ; 
'grow and prosper. Make another Eden of this en- 
chanting spot, so that those who come after may know 
at least something of the tastes and the perfumes of 
Paradise.' " 

The Professor had not remained to hear the legend ; 
he had gone up the mountain, and we now heard him 
shouting ; that is, he was trying to shout, although he 
produced only a sort of long, thin hoot. 

" What can that be ?" I said, startled. 

" It is the Professor," answered Mrs. Trescott. " It 
is his way of calling. He has his own methods of do- 
ing everything." 

It turned out that he had found a path down which 
the lemon girls were coming from the terraces above. 
We went up to this point to see them pass. They were 
all strong and ruddy, and walked with wonderful erect- 
ness, balancing the immense weight of fruit on their 
heads without apparent effort ; they were barefooted, 
and moved with a solid, broad step down the steep, 
stony road. The load of fruit for each one was one 
hundred and twenty pounds ; they worked all day in 
this manner, and earned about thirty cents each ! But 
they looked robust and cheerful, and some of them 
smiled at us under their great baskets as they passed. 

One afternoon not long after this we went to the 
Capuchin monastery of the Annunziata. Some of us 



72 



were on donkeys and some on foot, forming one of 
those processions so often seen winding through the 
streets of the little Mediterranean town. We passed 
the shops filled with the Mentone swallow, singing his 
"Je reviendrai" upon articles in wood, in glass, mo- 
saic, silver, straw, canvas, china, and even letter-paper, 
with continuous perseverance ; we passed the venders 
of hot chestnuts, which we not infrequently bought and 
ate ourselves. Then we came to the perfume distiller- 
ies, where thousands of violets yield their sweetness 
daily. 

" They cultivate them for the purpose, you know," 
said Verney. " It's a poetical sort of agriculture, isn't 
it ? Imagination can hardly go further, I think, than 
the idea of a violet farm." 

We passed small chapels with their ever-burning 
lamps; the new villas described by the French news- 
papers as " ravishing constructions " ; and then, turning 
from the road, we ascended a narrow path which wound 
upward, its progress marked here and there by stone 
shrines, some freshly repainted, others empty and mined, 
pointing the way to the holy church of the Annun- 
ziata. 

" The only way to appreciate Mentone is to take 
these excursions up the valleys and mountains," said 
Mrs. Clary. " Those who confine themselves to sitting 
in the gardens of the hotels or strolling along the Prom- 
enade du Midi have no more idea of its real beauty 
than a man born blind has of a painting. Descriptions 
are nothing; one must see. I think the mountain ex- 
cursions may be called the shibboleth of Mentone ; if 
you do not know them, you are no true Israelite." 

Verney had a graceful way of gathering delicate 
little sprays and blossoms here and there and silently 
divine; them to Janet. The Professor had noticed this, 
and to-day emulated him by gathering a bunch of mal- 



73 



low with great care — a bunch nearly a yard in circum- 
ference — which he presented to Janet with much cere- 
mony. 

"Oh, thanks; I am so fond of flowers I" responded 
that young person. " Is it asphodel ? I long to see 
asphodel." 

Now asphodel was said to grow in that neighbor- 
hood, and Janet knew it ; by expressing a wish to see 
the classic blossom she sent the poor Professor on a 
long search for it, climbing up and down and over the 
rocks, until I, looking on from my safe donkey's back, 
felt tired for him. And it was not long before our 
donkeys' steady pace left him far behind. 

" With its pale, dusty leaves and weakly lavender 
flowers, it is, I think, about as depressing a flower as 
I have seen," said Inness, looking at the mammoth 
bouquet. 

" I might fasten it to the saddle, and relieve your 
hands, Miss Trescott," suggested Verney. So the 
delicate gray gloves relinquished the pound of mallow, 
which was tied to the saddle, and there hung igno- 
miniously all the remainder of the day. 

The church and convent of L' Annunziata crown an 
isolated vine-clad hill between two of the lovely valleys 
behind Mentone. The church was at the end of a 
little plaza, surrounded by a stone-wall ; in front there 
was an opening towards the south, where stood an iron 
cross twenty feet high, visible, owing to its situation, 
for many a mile. The stone monastery was on one 
side ; and the whole looked like a little fortification on 
the point of the hill. We went into the church, and 
looked at the primitive ex-votos on the wall, principally 
the offerings of Mediterranean sailors in remembrance 
of escape from shipwreck — fragments of rope and 
chain, pictures of storms at sea, and little wooden 
models of ships. In addition to these marine souve- 




THE MONASTERY OF 
l' ANNUNZIATA 



nirs, there were also 
some tokens of events 
on dry land, generally pictures of run- 
aways, where such remarkable angels 
were represented sitting unexpectedly 
but calmly on the tops of trees by the 
road-side that it was no wonder the 
horses ran. But the lovely view of sea 
and shore at the foot of the great cross in the sunshine 
was better than the dark, musty little church, and we 
soon went out and seated ourselves on the edge of the 
wall to look at it. While we were there one of the 
Capuchins, clad in his long brown gown, came out, 
crossed the plaza, gazed at us slowly, and then with 
equal slowness stooped and kissed the base of the cross, 
and returned, giving us another long gaze as he passed. 

" Was that piety or curiosity ?" I said. 

" I think it was Miss Trescott," said Baker. 



75 



Now as Miss Elaine was present, this was a little 
cruel ; but I learned afterwards that Baker had been 
rendered violent that day by hearing that his American 
politeness regarding Miss Elaine's self -bestowed society 
had been construed by that young lady into a hidden 
attachment to herself — an attachment which she " deep- 
ly regretted," but could not " prevent." She had con- 
fided this to several persons, who kept the secret 
in that strict way in which such secrets are usually 
kept. Indeed, with all the strictness, it was quite re- 
markable that Baker heard it. But not remarkable 
that he writhed under it. However, his remarks and 
manners made no difference to Miss Elaine ; she attrib- 
uted them to despair. 

While we were sitting on the wall the Professor 
came toiling up the hill ; but he had not found the as- 
phodel. However, when Janet had given him a few of 
her pretty phrases he revived, and told us that the 
plaza was the site of an ancient village called Podium- 
Pinum, and that the Lascaris once had a chateau there. 

"The same Lascaris who lived in the old castle at 
Mentone ?" said Janet. 

" The same." 

" These old monks have plenty of wine, I suppose," 
said Inness, looking at the vine terraces which covered 
the sunny hill-side. 

" Very good wine was formerly made around Men- 
tone," said the Professor ; " but the vines were de- 
stroyed by a disease, and the peasants thought it the 
act of Providence, and for some time gave up the cult- 
ure. But lately they have replanted them, and wine 
is now again produced which, I am told, is quite pala- 
table." 

" That is but a cold phrase to apply to the bon petit 
vin blanc of Sant' Agnese, for instance," said Verney, 
smiling. 



76 



Soon we started homeward. While we were winding 
down the narrow path we met a Capuchin coming np, 
with his bag on his back ; he was an old man with bent 
shoulders and a meek, dull face, to whom the task of 
patient daily begging would not be more of a burden 
than any other labor. But when we reached the nar- 
row main street, and found a momentary block, an- 
other Capuchin happened to stand near us who gave 
me a very different impression. Among the carriages 
was a phaeton, with silken canopy, fine horses, and 
a driver in livery ; upon the cushioned seat lounged 
a young man, one of Fortune's favorites and Nature's 
curled darlings, a little stout from excess of comfort, 
perhaps, but noticeably handsome and noticeably haughty 
— probably a Russian nobleman. The monk who stood 
near us with his bag of broken bread and meat over 
his back was of the same age, and equally handsome, 
as far as the coloring and outline bestowed by nature 
could go. His dark eyes were fixed immovably upon 
the occupant of the phaeton, and I wondered if he was 
noting the difference ; it seemed as if he must be not- 
ing it. It was a striking tableau of life's utmost riches 
and utmost poverty. 

That evening there was music in the garden ; a band 
of Italian singers chanted one or two songs to the saints, 
and then ended with a gay Tarantella, which set all 
the house-maids dancing in the moonlight. We lis- 
tened to the music, and looked off over the still sea. 

"Isn't it beautiful?" said Mrs. Clary. "I think 
loving Mentone is like loving your lady-love. To you 
she is all beautiful, and you describe her as such. 
But perhaps when others see her they say : ' She is 
by no means all beautiful ; she has this or that fault. 
What do you mean ?' Then you answer: ' I love her; 
therefore to me she is all beautiful. As for her faults, 
they may be there, but I do not see them : I am blind.' " 




CAPUCHIN MONKS 



79 



That same evening Margaret gave me the following 
verses which she had written : 



MENTONE. 

u And there w<xs given unto them a short time before they went 
forward." 

Upon this sunny shore 
A little space for rest. The care and sorrow, 

Sad memory's haunting pain that would not cease, 
Are left behind. It is not yet to-morrow. 

To-day there falls the dear surprise of peace; 
The sky and sea, their broad wings round us sweeping, 
Close out the world, and hold us in their keeping. 
A little space for rest. Ah ! though soon o'er, 
How precious is it on the sunny shore ! 

Upon this sunny shore 
A little space for love, while those, our dearest, 

Yet linger with us ere they take their flight 
To that far world which now doth seem the nearest, 

So deep and pure this sky's down-bending light. 
Slow, one by one, the golden hours are given 
A respite ere the earthly ties are riven. 
When left alone, how, 'mid our tears, we store 
Each breath of their last days upon this shore! 

Upon this sunny shore 
A little space to wait : the life-bowl broken, 

The silver cord unloosed, the mortal name 
We bore upon this earth by God's voice spoken, 

While at the sound all earthly praise or blame, 
Our joys and griefs, alike with gentle sweetness 
Fade in the dawn of the next world's completeness. 
The hour is thine, dear Lord ; we ask no more, 
But wait thy summons on the sunny shore. 



II 



" Thy skies are blue, thy crags as wild, 
Thine olive ripe, as when Minerva smiled." 

— Byron. 

" So having rung that bell once too often, they were 
all carried off," concluded Inness, as we came up. 

" Who r I asked. 

" Look around you, and divine." 

We were on Capo San Martino. This, being inter- 
preted, is only Cape Martin ; but as we had agreed to 
use the "dear old names," we could not leave out that 
of the poor cape only because it happened to have six 
syllables. We looked around. Before us were ruins 
— walls built of that unintelligible broken stone mixed 
at random with mortar, which confounds time, and 
may be, as a construction, five or five hundred years 
old. 

" They — whoever they were — lived here ?" I said. 

"Yes." 

" And it was from here that they were carried off ?" 

"It was." 

"Were they those interesting Greek Lascaris?" said 
Mrs. Trescott. 

" No." 

" The Troglodytes V suggested Mrs. Clarv. 

" No." 

" The poor old ancient gods and goddesses of the 
coast?" said Margaret. 

« No." 



81 



" But who carried them oft' ?" I said. " That is the 
point. It makes all the difference in the world." 

" I know it does," replied Inness ; " especially in the 
case of an elopement. In this case it happened to be 
Miss Trescott's friends (always with two r's),the Sarra- 
sins. The story is but a Mediterranean version of the 
boy and the wolf. These ruins are the remains of an 
ancient convent built in — in the remote Past. The 
good nuns, after taking possession (perhaps they were 
inland nuns, and did not know what they were coming 
to when they came to a shore), began to be in great 
fear of the sea and Sarrasin sails. They therefore be- 
sought the men of Mentone and Roccabruna to fly to 
their aid if at any time they heard the bell of the chap- 
el ringing rapidly. The men promised, and held them- 
selves in readiness to fly. One night they heard the 
bell. Then westward ran the men of Mentone, and 
down the hill came those of Roccabruna, and together 
they flew out on Capo San Martino to this convent — 
only to find no Sarrasins at all, but only the nuns in a 
row upon their knees entreating pardon : they had rung 
the bell as a test. Not long afterwards the bell raug 
again, but no one went. This time it really was the 
Sarrasins, and the nuns were all carried off." 

"Very dramatic. The slight discrepancy that this 
happened to be a monastery for monks makes no differ- 
ence : who cares for details !" said Verney, who, under 
the pretence of sketching the ruins, was making his 
eighth portrait of Janet. He said of these little pencil 
portraits that he " threw them in." Janet was there- 
fore thrown into the Red Rocks, the "old town," the 
Bone Caverns, the Pont St. Louis, Dr. Bennet's garden, 
the cemetery, Capo San Martino, and before we finished 
into Roccabruna, Castellare, Monaco, Dolce Acqua, Sant' 
Agnese, and the old Roman Trophy at Turbia. 

Leaving the ruins, we went down to the point, where 



82 



the cape juts out sharply into the sea, forming- the west- 
ern boundary of the Mentone bay. Opposite, on the 
eastern point, lay blanche Bordighera, fair and silvery 
as ever in the sunshine. We found the Professor on 
the point examining the rocks. 

" This is a formation similar to that which we may 
see in process of construction at the present moment off 
the coast of Florida," he explained. 

" Not coquina V cried Miss Graves, instantly going 
down and selecting a large fragment. 

" It is conglomerate," replied the Professor, disap- 
pearing around the cliff corner, walking on little knobs 
of rock, and almost into the Mediterranean in his eager- 
ness. 

" That word conglomerate is one of the most useful 
terms I know," said Inness. " It covers everything : 
like Renaissance." 

" The rock is also called pudding-stone," said Verney. 

" Away with pudding-stone! we will have none of it. 
We are nothing if not dignified, are we, Miss Elaine ?" 
said Inness, turning to that young lady, who was be- 
stowing upon him the boon of her society for the happy 
afternoon. 

" I am sure I have always thought you had a yreat 
deal of dignity, Mr. Inness," replied Miss Elaine, with 
her sweetest smile. 

We sat down on the rocks and looked at the blue 
sea. " It is commonplace to be continually calling it 
blue," I said ; " but it is inevitable, for no one can look 
at it without thinking of its color." 

" It has seen so much," said Mrs. Clary, in her ear- 
nest way ; " it has carried the fleets of all antiquity. 
The Egyptians, the Greeks, the Phoenicians, the Car- 
thaginians, and the Romans passed to and fro across 
it ; the Apostles sailed over it ; yet it looks as fresh and 
young and untraversed as though created yesterday." 



85 



11 It certainly is the fairest water in the world," said 
Janet. " It must be the reflection of heaven." 

" It is the proportion of salt," said the Professor, who 
had come back around the rock corner on the knobs. 
" A larger amount of salt is held in solution in the 
Mediterranean than in the Atlantic. It is a very deep 
body of water, too, along this coast : at Nice it was 
found to be three thousand feet deep only a few yards 
from the shore." 

" These Mediterranean sailors are such cowards," 
said Inness. " At the first sign of a storm they all 
come scudding in. If the Phoenicians were like them, 
another boyhood illusion is gone ! However, since they 
demolished William Tell, I have not much cared." 

" The Mediterranean sailors of the past were proba- 
bly, like those of the present, obliged to come scudding 
in," said Verney, " because the winds w T ere so uncertain 
and variable. They use lateen-sails for the same reason, 
because they can be let down by the run ; all the coast- 
ing xebecs and feluccas use them." 

" Xebecs and feluccas — delicious words !" said 
Janet. 

" I still maintain that they are cowards," resumed 
Inness. " The other day, when there was that capful 
of wind, you know, twenty of these delicious xebecs 
came hurrying into our little port, running into each 
other in their haste, and crowding together in the little 
pool like frightened chickens under a hen's wings. And 
they were not all delicious xebecs, either ; there were 
some good-sized sea-going vessels among them, brig- 
rigged in front with the seven or eight small square 
sails they string up one above the other, and a towel 
out to windward." 

" The winds of Mentone are wizards," said Margaret ; 
" they never come from the point they seem to come 
from. If thev blow full in vour face from the east, 



make up your mind that they come directly from the 
west. They are enchanted." 

" They are turned aside by the slopes of the moun- 
tains," said Baker, practically. 

" But the Mediterranean has not lived up to its rep- 
utation, after all," said Janet. " I expected to see fleets of 
nautilus, and I have not seen one. And not a porpoise !" 

" For porpoises," said Miss Graves, who had knotted 
a handkerchief around her conglomerate, and was carry- 
ing it tied to a scarf like a shawl-strap — " for porpoises 
you must go to Florida." 

We left the cape and went inland through the woods, 
looking for the old Roman tomb. We found it at last, 
appropriately placed in a gray old olive grove, some of 
whose trees, no doubt, saw its foundations laid. The 
fragment of old roadway near it was introduced by In- 
ness as "the Julia Augusta, lifting up its head again." 
It had laid it down last at the Red Rocks. The tomb 
originally was as large as a small chapel ; one of the 
side walls was gone, but the front remained almost per- 
fect. This front was in three arches ; traces of fresco 
decoration were still visible under the curves. Below 
were lines of stone in black and white alternately, and 
the same mosaic was repeated above, w 7 here there was 
also a cornice stretching from the sides to a central 
empty space, once filled by the square marble slab bear- 
ing the inscription. We found Lloyd here, sketching ; 
but as we came up he closed his sketch-book, joined 
Margaret, and the two strolled off through the old wood, 
which had, as Inness remarked, " as many moving asso- 
ciations " as we chose to recall, " from the feet of the 
Roman legions to those of the armies of Napoleon." 

" I wish we knew what the inscription was," said 
Janet, who was sitting on the grass in front of the 
old tomb. " I should like to know who it was who was 
laid here so long, long ago." 



87 



" Some old Roman," said Baker. 

" He might not have been old," said Verney, who 
was now sketching in his turn. " There is another 
Roman tomb, or fragment of one, above us on the side 
of the mountain, and the inscription on that one gives 
the name of a youth who died, ' aged eighteen years 
and ten months,' two thousand years ago, 'much sor- 
rowed for by his father and his mother.' " 

"Love then was the same as now, and will be the same 
after we are gone, I suppose," said Janet, thoughtfully, 
leaning her pretty head back against an old olive-tree. 

" A reason why we should take it while we can," ob- 
served Inness. 

The Professor and Miss Graves now appeared in 
sight, for we had come across from the cape in acci- 
dental little groups, and these two had found them- 
selves one of them. As the Professor had his sack of 
specimens and Miss Graves her conglomerate, we thought 
they looked well together ; but the Professor evidently 
did not think so, for he immediately joined Janet. 

" I do not know that there is any surer sign of ad- 
vancing age in a man than a growing preference for the 
society of very young girls — mere youth per se, as the 
Professor himself would say," said Mrs. Clary to me in 
an undertone. 

Meanwhile the Professor, unconscious of this judg- 
ment, was telling Janet that she was standing upon the 
site of the old Roman station " Lumone," mentioned in 
Antony's Itinerary, and that the tomb was that of a 
patrician family. 

Mrs. Trescott was impressed by this. She said it 
was " a paean moment " for us all, if we would but real- 
ize it ; and she plucked a fern in remembrance. 

One bright day not long after this we went to Men- 
tone's sister city, Roccabruna, a little town looking as 



88 



if it were hooked on to the side of the mountain. As 
we passed through the " old town " on our donkeys we 
met a wedding - party, walking homeward from the 
church, in the middle of the street. The robust bride, 
calm and majestic, moved at the head of the procession 
with her father, her white muslin gown sweeping the 
pavement behind her. Probably it would have been 
considered undignified to lift it. The father, a small, 
wizened old man, looked timorous, and the bridegroom, 
next behind with the bride's mother, still more so, even 
the quantity of brave red satin cravat he wore failing 
to give him a martial air. Next came the relatives and 
friends, two and two, all the gowns of the women sweep- 
ing out with dignity. In truth this seemed to be the 
feature of the occasion, since at all other times their 
gowns were either short or carefully held above the 
dust. There was no music, no talking, hardly a smile. 
A christening party we had met the day before was 
much more joyous, for then the smiling father and 
mother threw from the carriage at intervals handfuls 
of sugar-plums and small copper coins, which were 
scrambled for by a crowd of children, while the gor- 
geously dressed baby was held up proudly at the 
window. 

We were going first to Gorbio. The Gorbio Valley 
is charming. Of all the valleys, the narrow Val de 
Mcnton is the loveliest for an afternoon walk ; but for 
longer excursions, and compared with the valleys of 
Carrei and Borrigo, that of Gorbio is the most beau- 
tiful, principally because there is more water in the 
stream, which comes sweeping and tumbling over its 
bed of flat rock like the streams of the White Moun- 
tains, whereas the so-called "torrents" of Carrei and 
Borrigo are generally but wide, arid torrents of stone. 
We passed olive and lemon groves, mills, vineyards, and 
millions upon millions of violets. Then the path, which 



constantly ascended, grew wilder, but not so wild as 
Inness. I could not imagine what possessed him. He 
sang, told stories, vaulted over Baker, and laughed un- 
til the valley rang again ; but as his voice was good 
and his stories amusing, we enjoyed his merriment. 
Miss Elaine looked on, I thought, with an air of pity ; 
but then Miss Elaine pitied everybody. She would 
have pitied Jenny Lind at the height of her fame, and 
no doubt when she was in Florence she pitied the 
Venus de' Medici. 

We found G-orbio a little village of six hundred in- 
habitants, perched on the point of a rock, with the 
ground sloping away on all sides ; the remains of its 
old wall and fortified gates were still to be seen. We 
entered and explored its two streets — narrow passage- 
ways between the old stone houses, whose one idea 
seemed to be to crowd as closely together and occupy 
as little of the ground space as possible. Above the 
clustered roofs towered the ruined walls of what was 
once the castle, the tower only remaining distinct. This 
tower bore armorial bearings, which I was trying to 
decipher, when Verney came up with Janet. " Nothing 
but those same arms of the Lascaris," he said. 

" Why do you say ' nothing but ' ?" said Janet. 
"To be royal, and Greek, and have three castles — for 
this is the third we have seen — is not nothing, but 
something, and a great deal of something. How I wish 
I had lived in those days !" 

As the Professor was not with us, we knew nothing 
of the story of G-orbio, and walked about rather uncom- 
fortable and ill-informed in consequence. But it turned 
out that Gorbio, like the knife-grinder, had no story. 
" Story ? Lord bless you ! I have none to tell, sir." 
Inness, however, had reserved one fact, which he finally 
delivered to us under the great elm in the centre of the 
little plaza, where we had assembled to rest. " This 



90 



peaceful village," lie began, " whose idyllic children now 
form a gazing circle around us, was the scene of a san- 
guinary combat between the French and Spanish- Aus- 
trian armies in 1746." 

" Oh, modern ! modern !" said Yerney from behind 
(where he was throwing Janet into Gorbio). 

"Your pardon," said Inness, with majesty; "not 
modern at all. In 1*746, as I beg to remind you, even 
the foundation-stones of our great republic were not 
laid, yet the man who ventures to say that it is not, as 
a construction, absolutely venerable, from exceeding 
merit, will be a rash one. In America, Time is not old 
or slow ; he has given up his hour-glass, and travels by 
express. Each month of ours equals one of your years, 
each year a century. Therefore have we all a singu- 
larly mature air — as exemplified in myself. But to re- 
turn. Upon this spot, then, my friends, there was 
once — carnage ! The only positive and historical car- 
nage in the neighborhood of Mentone. Therefore all 
warlike spirits should come to Gorbio, and breathe the 
inspiring air." 

AVe did not stay long enough in the inspiring air to 
become belligerent, however, but, on the contrary, went 
peacefully past a quiet old shrine, and took the path to 
Roccabruna — one of the most beautiful paths in the 
neighborhood of Mentone. By-and-by we came to a 
tall cross on the top of a high ridge. We had seen it 
outlined against the sky while still in the streets of Gor- 
bio. These mountain-side crosses were not uncommon. 
They are not locally commemorative, as we first sup- 
posed, but seem to be placed here and there, where 
there is a beautiful view, to remind the gazer of the 
hand that created it all. Some distance farther we 
found a still wider prospect ; and then we came down 
into Roccabruna, and spread out our lunch on the bat- 
tlements of the old castle. From this point our eyes 




|1 : |-.:4' 



STREET IN ROCCABRUNA 



rested on the coast-line stretching east and west, the 
frowning Dog's Head at Monaco, and the white wind- 
ing course of the Cornice Road. The castle was on the 
side of the mountain, eight hundred feet above the sea. 
Although forming part of the village, it was completely 
isolated by its position on a high pinnacle of rock, 
which ro^e far above the roofs on all sides. 

" How these poor timid little towns clung close to 
and under their lords' walls !" said Baker, with the fine 
contempt of a young American. " They are all alike : 
the castle towering above ; next the church and the 
priest ; and the people — nowhere !" 



92 



" The people were happy enough, living in this air," 
said Mrs. Clary. " How does it strike you ? To me it 
seems delicious ; but many persons find it too exciting." 

" It certainly gives me an appetite," I said, taking an- 
other sandwich. 

Miss Elaine found it "too warm." Miss Graves 
found it " too cold." Mrs. Trescott, having been made 
herself again by a glass of the " good little white wine " 
of Gorbio, said that it was " almost too idealizing." 
Lloyd remarked that it was not " too anything unless 
too delightful," and that, for his part, he wished that, 
with the present surroundings, he might " breathe it 
forever !" This was gallant. Janet looked at him : he 
was the only one who had not bowed at her shrine, and 
it made her pensive. Meanwhile Inness's gayety con- 
tinued; he made a voyage of discovery through the 
narrow streets below, coming back with the legend that 
he had met the prettiest girl he had seen since his 
" pretty girl of Aries," whose eyes, " enshrined beside 
those of Miss Trescott" (with a grand bow), had re- 
mained ever since in his "heart's inmost treasury." 
This, like Baker's L' Annunziata speech, was both un- 
American and unnecessary in the presence of a second 
young lady, and I looked at Inness, surprised. But 
Miss Elaine only smiled on. 

The Professor now appeared, having come out from 
Mcntone on a donkey. We immediately became his- 
torical. It appeared that the castle upon whose old 
battlements we were idly loitering was one of the 
"homes" of the Lascaris, Counts of Ventimiglia, who 
in 1358 transferred it with its domains to the Grimal- 
dis, Princes of Monaco. 

" These Lascaris and Grimaldis seem to have played 
at seesaw for the possession of this coast," said Baker. 
" Now one is up, and now the other, but never any one 
else." 



93 



But Janet was impressed. " Again the Lascaris !" 
slie murmured. 

" What is your idea of them ?" said Verney. 

" I hardly know ; but of course they were knights in 
armor ; and of course, being Greeks, they had classic 
profiles. They were impulsive, and they were generous ; 
but if any one seriously displeased them, they immedi- 
ately ordered him cast into that terrible oubliette we 
saw below." 

" That," said the Professor, mildly, " is only the well." 
Then, as if to strengthen her with something authentic, 
he added, " The village was sacked by the Duke of G-uise 
towards the end of the sixteenth century, when this cas- 
tle was reduced to the ruined condition in which we 
find it now." 

" Happily it is not altogether ruined," said Mrs. Tres- 
cott, putting up her eye-glass ; " one of the — the apart- 
ments seems to be roofed, and to possess doors." 

" That," said the Professor, " is a donkey - stable, 
erected — or rather adapted — later." 

*' Do the donkeys come up all these stairs V I said, 
amused. 

" I believe they do," replied the Professor. " In- 
deed, I have seen them coming up after the day's work 
is over." 

" I am sorry, Janet, but I shall never be able to think 
of this home of your Lascaris after this without seeing 
a procession of donkeys coming up-stairs on their way 
to their high apartments," I said, laughing. 

" The procession might have been the same in the 
days of the Lascaris," suggested Baker. 

Roccabruna — brown rock — is an appropriate name 
for the village, which is so brown and so mixed with 
and built into the cliff to which it clings that it is diffi- 
cult to tell where man's work ends and that of nature 
begins. 



94 



" The town was the companion of Mentone in its re- 
bellion against the Princes of Monaco," said the Pro- 
fessor. " Mentone and Roccabruna freed themselves, 
but Monaco remained enslaved." 

" They are all now in France," said Baker. 

" Sir !" replied the Professor, with heat, " it is in a 
much worse place than France that wretched Monaco 
now finds herself !" 

We went homeward down the mountain-side, passing 
the little chapel of the Madonna della Pausa — a pause 
being indeed necessary when one is ascending. Here, 
where the view was finest, there was another way-side 
cross. Farther on, as we entered the old olive wood 
below, Margaret dismounted ; she always liked to walk 
through the silver -gray shade; and Lloyd seemed to 
have adopted an equal fondness for the same tint. 

That evening, when we were alone, Margaret explained 
the secret of Inness's remarkable and unflagging gayety. 
It seemed that Miss Elaine had, during the day before, 
confided to Verney — as a fellow-countryman, I suppose 
— her self-reproach concerning " that poor young Amer- 
ican gentleman, Mr. Inness." What should she do? 
Would he advise her ? She must go to some one, and 
she did not feel like troubling her dear mamma. It 
was true that Mr. Inness had been with her a good deal, 
had helped her wind her worsteds in the evening, but 
she never meant anything — never dreamed of anything. 
And now, she could not but feel — there was something 
in his manner that forced her to see — In short, had 
not Mr. Verney noticed it ? 

Now I have no doubt but that Verney told her he 
had " seen " and had " noticed " everything she desired. 
But in the meanwhile he could not resist confiding the 
story to Baker, who having been already a victim, was 
overcome with glee, and in his turn hastened to repeat 
the tale to Inness. 



95 



Inness raged, but hardly knew what to do. He final- 
ly decided to become a perfect Catharine-wheel of gay- 
ety, shooting off laughter and jokes in all directions to 
convince the world that he remained heart-whole. 

" But it will be of no avail," I said to Margaret, laugh- 
ing, as I recalled the look of soft pity on Miss Elaine's 
face all day ; " she will think it but the gayety of des- 
peration." Then, more soberly, I added : " Mr. Lloyd 
told you this, I suppose ? You are with him a great 
deal, are you not ?" 

" You see that I am, aunt. But it is only because 
she has not come yet." 

" Who ?" 

" The brighter and younger woman who will take my 
place." But I did not think she believed it. 

On another day we went to Castellare, a little stone 
village much like Gorbio, perched on its ridge, and re- 
joicing in an especial resemblance to one of Caesar's 
fortified camps. The castle here was not so much a 
castle as a chateau ; its principal apartment was adorned 
with frescos representing the history of Adam and 
Eve. We should not have seen these frescos if it had 
not been for Miss Graves : I am afraid we should have 
(there is no other word) shirked them. But Miss 
Graves had heard of the presence of ancient works of 
art, and was bent upon finding them. In vain Lloyd 
conducted her in and out of half a dozen old houses, 
suggesting that each one was " probably " all that was 
left of the " chateau." Miss Graves remained inflexibly 
unconvinced, and in the end gained her point. We all 
saw Adam and Eve. 

" Why did they want frescos away out here in this 
primitive little village to which no road led, hardly even 
a donkey path ?" I said. 

" That is the very reason," replied Margaret. " They 



had no society, nothing to do ; so they looked at their 
frescos exhaustively." 

" What do those eagles at the corners represent V 
said Janet. 

" They are the device of the Lascaris," replied the 
Professor. 

" Do you mean to tell me that this was one of their 
homes also ?" she exclaimed. " Let a chair be brought, 
and all of you leave me. I wish to remain here alone, 
and imagine that 1 am one of them." 

" Couldn't you imagine two ?" said Inness. And he 
gained his point. 

On our way home we found another block in the 
main street, and paused. We were near what we called 
the umbrella place— an archway opening down towards 
the old port ; here against the stone wall an umbrella- 
maker had established his open-air shop, and his scarlet 
and blue lined parasols and white umbrellas, hung up 
at the entrance, made a picturesque spot of color we 
had all admired. This afternoon we were late ; it was 
nearly twilight, and, in this narrow, high-walled street, 
almost night. As we waited we heard chanting, and 
through the dusky archway came a procession. First 
a tall white crucifix borne between two swinging lamps ; 
then the surpliced choir -boys, chanting; then the in- 
cense and the priests ; then a coffin, draped, and carried 
in the old way on the shoulders of the bearers, who 
were men robed in long-hooded black gowns reaching 
to the feet, their faces covered, with only two holes for 
the eyes. These were members of the Society of Black 
Penitents, who, with the White Penitents, attend funer- 
als by turn, and care for the sick and poor, from chari- 
table motives alone, and without reward. Behind the 
Penitents walked the relatives and friends, each with a 
little lighted taper. As the procession came through 
the dark archway, crossed the street, and wound up the 




THE KING OF THE OLIVES 



bill into the " old town," its effect, with the glancing 
lights and chanting voices, was weirdly picturesque. It 
was on its way to the cemetery above. 

" Did you ever read this, Mr. Lloyd ?" I heard Mar- 
garet say behind me, as we went onward towards home : 

'"One day, in desolate wind-swept space, 

In twilight-land, in no-man's-land, 
Two hurrying Shapes met face to face, 

And bade each other stand. 
" And who art thou ?" cried one, agape, 

Shuddering in the gloaming light. 
" I do not know," said the second Shape : 

"I only died last night.'"" 

I turned. Lloyd was looking at her curiously, or 
rather with wonder. 

" Come, Margaret," I said, falling behind so as to 
join them, " the English are not mystical, as some of 
us are. They are content with what they can definitely 
know, and they leave the rest." 

During the next week, after a long discussion, we de- 
cided to go up the valley of the Nervia. The discus- 
sion was not inharmonious : we liked discussions. 

" This is by no means one of the ordinary Mentone 
excursions," said Mrs. Clary, as our three carriages 
ascended the Cornice Road towards the east, on a beau- 
tiful morning after one of the rare showers. " Many 
explore all of the other valleys, and visit Monaco and 
Monte Carlo ; but comparatively few go up the Nervia." 

The scene of the instalment of our twelve selves in 
these three carriages, by-the-way, was amusing. Be- 
tween the inward determination of Inness, Yerney, Ba- 
ker, and the Professor to be in the carriage which held 
Janet, and the equally firm determination of Miss Elaine 
to be in the carriage which held them, it seemed as if 
we should never be placed. But no one said what he 



100 



or she wished ; far from it. Everybody was very po- 
lite, wonderfully polite ; everybody offered his or her 
place to everybody else. Lloyd, after waiting a few 
moments, calmly helped Margaret into one of the car- 
riages, handed in her shawl, and then took a seat him- 
self opposite. But the rest of us surged helplessly to 
and fro among the wheels, not quite knowing what 
to do, until the arrival of the hotel omnibus hur- 
ried us, when we took our places hastily, without any 
arrangement at all, and drove off as follows : in the 
first carriage, Mrs. Trescott, Janet, Miss Elaine, and my- 
self ; in the second, Miss Graves, Inness, Verney, and 
Baker ; in the third, Mrs. Clary, Margaret, Lloyd, and 
the Professor. This assortment was so comical that I 
laughed inwardly all the way up the first hill. Miss 
Elaine looked as if she was on the point of shedding 
tears; and the* Professor, who did not enjoy the con- 
versation of either Margaret or Mrs. Clary, was equally 
discomfited. As for the faces of the three young 
men shut in with Miss Graves, they were a study. 
However, it did not last long. The young men soon 
preferred " to walk uphill." Then we stopped at Mor- 
tola to see the Hanbury garden, and took good care 
not to arrange ourselves in the same manner a second 
time. Still, as four persons cannot, at least in the 
present state of natural science, occupy at the same mo- 
ment the space only large enough for one, there was 
all day more or less manoeuvring. From Mortola to 
Ventimiglia I was in the carriage with Janet, Inness, 
and Verney. 

"What ruin is that on the top of the hill?" said 
Janet. " It looks like a castle. 

" It is a castle — Castel d'Appio," said Verney ; " a 
position taken by the Genoese in 1221 from the Las- 
caris, who — " 

" Stop the carriage ! — I must go up," said Janet, 



101 



" I assure yon, Miss Trescott, that, Lascaris or no 
Lascaris, you will find yourself mummied in mud after 
this rain," said Inness. " / went up there in a dry 
time, and even then had to wade." 

Now if there is anything which Janet especially cher- 
ishes, it is her pretty boots ; so Castel d'Appio re- 
mained unvisited upon its height, in lonely majesty 
against the sky. The next object of interest was a 
square tower, standing on the side-hill not far above the 
road ; it was not large on the ground, rather was it nar- 
row, but it rose in the air to an imposing height. I 
could not imagine what its use had been : it stood too 
far from the sea for a lookout, and, from its shape, could 
hardly have been a residence ; in its isolation, not a 
fortress. Inness said it looked like a steeple with the 
church blown away ; and then, inspired by his own 
comparison, he began to chant an ancient ditty about 

" ' The next thing they saw was a barn on a hill : 
One said 'twas a barn ; 
The other said "Na-ay;" 
And t'other 'twas a church with its steeple blown away : 
Look — a — there !' " 

This extremely venerable ballad delighted Miss Graves 
in the carriage behind so that she waved her black par- 
asol in applause. She asked if Inness could not sing 
" Springfield Mountain." 

"There is nothing left now," I said, laughing, " but 
the ' Battle of the Nile.' " 

Verney, who had sketched the tower early in the 
winter, explained that the old road to Ventimiglia 
passed directly through the lower story, which was 
built in the shape of an arch. All the carriages were 
now together, as we gazed at the relic. 

" The road goes through ?" said Miss Graves. " Prob- 
ably, then, it was a toll-gate." 




FEUDAL TOWER NEAR VENTIMIGLIA 

This was so probable, al- 
though unromantic, that there- 
after the venerable structure 
was called by that name, or, 
as Inness suggested, " not to 
be too disrespectful, the medi- 
eval T. G." 

Ventimiglia, seven miles 
from Mentone, was " one of 



ios 



the most ancient towns in Liguria," the Professor re- 
marked. Mrs. Trescott, Mrs. Clary, and I looked much 
wiser after this information, but carefully abstained 
from saying anything* to each other of the cloudy nat- 
ure of our ideas respecting the geographical word. 
However, we noticed, unaided, that its fortifications were 
extensive, for we rolled over a drawbridge to enter it, 
passing high stone-walls, bastions, and port-holes, while 
on the summit of the hill above us frowned a laro-e 

o 

Italian fort. The Roy a, a broad river which divides 
the town into two parts, is crossed by a long bridge ; 
and we were over this bridge and some distance be- 
yond before we discovered that we had left the old 
quarter on the other side, its closely clustering roofs 
and spires having risen so directly over our heads on 
the steep side -hill that we had not observed them. 
Should we go back? The carriages drew up to consid- 
er. We had still " a long drive before us ;" these " old 
Riviera villages " were " all alike ;" the hill seemed 
" very steep ;" and " we can come here, you know, at 
any time" — were some of the opinions given. The 
Professor, who really wished to stop, gallantly yielded. 
Miss Graves, alone in the opposition, was obliged to 
yield also ; but she was deeply disappointed. The ca- 
thedral, formerly dedicated to Jupiter, possesses a white 
marble pulpit incrusted with mosaics, and an octagon 
font, very ancient,' " she read, mournfully, aloud, from 
her manuscript note-book. " ' The Church of St. Mi- 
chael, also, guards Roman antiquities of surpassing in- 
terest.' " This word "guards" had a fine effect. 

But, " we can come here at any time, you know," 
carried the day ; and we drove on. I may as well men- 
tion that, as usual in such cases, w T e never did " come 
here at any time," save on the one occasion of our de- 
parture for Florence — an occasion which no railway 
traveller going to Italy by this route is likely soon to 



i04 



forget, the Ventimiglia custom-house being modelled 
patriotically upon the circles of Dante's " Inferno." 

When we were at a safe distance — " I suppose you 
know, Miss Trescott, that Ventimiglia was the principal 
home of your Lascaris ?" said Verney. " First of all, 
they were Counts of Ventimiglia: that Italian port 
stands on the site of their old castle. I have been look- 
ing into their genealogy a little on your account ; and I 
find that the first count of whom we have authentic 
record was a son of the King of Italy, a.d. 950. His 
son married the Princess Eudoxie, daughter of Theo- 
dore Lascaris, Emperor of Greece, and assumed the 
arms and name of his wife's family. Their descend- 
ants, besides being Counts of Ventimiglia, became 
Seigniors of Men tone, Castellare, Gorbio, Peille, Tende, 
and Briga, Roccabruna, and what is now L'Annunziata. 
They also had a chateau at Nice." 

" Let us go back !" said Janet. 

" To Nice ?" I asked, smiling. 

But Verney appeased her with an offering — nothing 
less than a sketch he had made. " The Lascaris," he 
said, as if introducing them. And there they were, in- 
deed, a group of knights on horseback, dressed in vel- 
vet doublets and lace ruffles, with long white plumes, 
followed by a train of pages and squires with armor and 
led-horses. All had Greek profiles : in truth, they were 
but various views of the Apollo Belvedere. This splen- 
did party was crossing the drawbridge of a castle, and, 
from a latticed casement above, two beautiful and 
equally Greek ladies, attired in ermine, with long veils 
and golden crowns, waved their scarfs in token of adieu. 

" Charming !" said Janet, much pleased. (And in 
truth it was, if fanciful, a very pretty sketch.) " But 
who are those ladies above ?" 

" I suppose they had wives and sisters, did they not?" 
said Verney. 



105 



" I suppose they did — of some sort, 1 ' said Janet, dis- 
paragingly. 

But Verney now produced a second sketch ; " an- 
other study of the same subject," he called it. This 
was a picture of the same number of men, clad in 
clumsy armor, with rough, coarse faces, attacking a 
pass and compelling two miserable frightened peasants 
with loaded mules to yield up what th.ey had, while, 
from a rude tower above, like our mediaeval T. G., two 
or three swarthy women with children were watching 
the scene. The wrappings of the two sketches being 
now removed, we saw that one was labelled, " The 
Lascaris — her Idea of them ;" and the other, " The Las- 
caris — as they were." 

We all laughed. But I think Janet was not quite 
pleased. After the next change Verney found himself, 
by some mysterious chance, left to occupy the seat be- 
side Miss Elaine, while Baker had his former place. 

The Nervia, a clear rapid little snow-formed river, 
ran briskly down over its pebbles towards the sea. 
Our road followed the western bank, and before long 
brought us to Campo Rosso, a little village with a pict- 
uresque belfry, a church whose facade was decorated 
with old frescos, two marble sirens spouting water, 
and numberless "bits" in the way of vistas through 
narrow arched passages and crooked streets, which are 
the delight of artists. But Campo Rosso was not our 
destination, and entering the carriage again, we went 
onward through an olive wood whose broad terraces 
extended above, below, and on all sides as far as eye 
could reach. When we had stopped wondering over its 
endlessness, and had grown accustomed to the gray 
light, suddenly we came out under the open sky again, 
with Dolce Acqua before us, its castle above, its church 
tower below, and, far beyond, our first view of snow- 
capped peaks rising high and silvery against the deep 



106 



blue sky. Inness and Baker threw up their hats and 
saluted the snow with an American hurrah. " What 
with those white peaks and this Italian sky, I feel like 
the Merry Swiss Boy and the Marble Faun rolled into 
one," said Baker. 

We drove up to the Locanda Desiderio, or " Desired 
Inn," as Inness translated it. It was now noon, and in 
the brick-floored apartment below a number of peas- 
ants were eating sour bread and drinking wine. But 
the host, a handsome young Italian, hastened to show 
us an upper chamber, where, with the warm sunshine 
flooding through the open windows across the bare 
floor, we spread our luncheon on a table covered with 
coarse but snowy homespun, and decked with remark- 
able plates in brilliant hues and still more brilliant 
designs. The luncheon was accompanied by several 
bottles of " the good little white wine " of the neighbor- 
hood — an accompaniment we had learned to appreciate. 

Upon the chimney-piece of a room adjoining ours, 
whose door stood open, there was an old brass lamp. 
In shape it was not unlike a high candlestick crowned 
with an oval reservoir for oil, which had three little 
curving tubes for wicks, and an upright handle above 
ending in a ring ; it was about a foot and a half high, 
and from it hung three brass chains holding a brass 
lamp-scissors and little brass extinguishers. Mrs. Clary, 
Mrs. Trescott, Miss Graves, Miss Elaine, and myself all 
admired this lamp as we strolled about the rooms after 
luncheon before starting for the castle. It happened 
that Janet was not there ; she had gone, by an unusual 
chance, with Lloyd, to look at some cinque-cento fres- 
cos in an old church somewhere, and was, I have no 
doubt, deeply interested in them. When she returned 
she too spied the old lamp, and admired it. " I wish I 
had it for my own room at home," she exclaimed. " I 
feel sure it is Aladdin's." 




DOLCE ACQCA 



109 



" Come, come, Janet," called Mrs. Trescott from be- 
low. "The castle waits." 

" It has waited some time already," said Inness — " a 
matter of six or seven centuries, I believe." 

"And looks as though it would wait six or seven 
more," I said, as we stood on the arched bridge admir- 
ing the massive walls above. 

" It has withstood numerous attacks," said the Pro- 
fessor. " Genoese armies came up this valley more 
than once to take it, and went back unsuccessful." 

" To me it is more especially distinguished by not 
having been a home of the Lascaris," said Baker. 

"To whom, then, did it belong?" said Janet, con- 
temptuously. 

We all, in a chorus, answered grandly, " To the 
Dorias !" (We were so glad to have reached a name 
we knew.) 

The castle crowned the summit of a crag, ruined but 
imposing; in shape a parallelogram, it had in front 
square towers, five stories in height, pierced with round- 
arched windows. It was the finest as well as largest 
ruin we lately landed Americans had seen, and we went 
hither and thither with much animation, telling each 
other all we knew, and much that we did not know, 
about ruined towers, square towers, drawbridges, moats, 
donjon keeps, and the like ; while Miss Elaine, who 
had placed herself beside Verney on the knoll where 
he was sketching, looked on in a kindly patroniz- 
ing way, as much as to say : " Enjoy yourselves, prim- 
itive children of the New World. We of England are 
familiar with ruins." 

Margaret and Lloyd found a seat in one of the ruined 
windows of the south tower ; I stood beside them for a 
few moments looking at the view. On the north the 
narrow valley curved and went onward, while over its 
dark near green rose the glittering snowy peaks so far 



110 



away. In the south, the bine of the Mediterranean 
stretched across the mouth of the valley, whose sides 
were bold and high ; the little river gleamed out in 
spots of silver here and there, and the white belfry of 
Campo Rosso rose picturesquely against the dark olive 
forest. Directly under us were the roofs of the village, 
and the old stone bridge of one high arch. " Do you 
notice that many of these roofs are flat, with benches, 
and pots of flowers?" said Lloyd. "You do not see 
that in Mentone. It is thoroughly Italian." 

Janet, Mrs. Trescott, Inness, Baker, and the Profess- 
or were up on the highest point of the crag, where the 
Professor was giving a succinct account of the Guelphs 
and Ghibellines. His words floated down to us, but to 
which of those celebrated and eternally quarrelling fac- 
tions these Dorias belong I regret to say I cannot now 
remember. But it was evident that he was talking elo- 
quently, and Inness, who was quite distanced, by way 
of diversion threw pebbles at the north tower. 

We came down from the castle after a while, and 
strolled through the village streets — all of us save Mar- 
garet and Lloyd, who remained sitting in their window. 
Mrs. Trescott, seeing a vaulted entrance, stopped to ex- 
amine it, and the broad doors being partly open, she 
peeped within. As there was more vaulting and no 
one to forbid, she stepped into the old hall, and we all 
followed her. We. were looking at the massive, finely 
proportioned stairway, when a little girl appeared above 
gazing down curiously. She was a pretty child of sev- 
en or eight, and held some little thumbed school-books 
under her arm. 

" Is this a school ?" asked Verney, in Italian. 

She nodded shyly, and ran away, but soon returned 
accompanied by a Sister, or nun, who, with a mixture 
of politeness and timidity, asked if we wished to see 
their schools. Of course we wished to see everything, 



Ill 



and going up the broad stairway, we were ushered into 
an unexpected and remarkable apartment. 

" We came to see an infant school, and we find a 
row of noblemen," said Baker. " They must be all the 
Dorias upon their native heath !" 

The " heath " was the wall, upon which, in black 
frames, were ranged forty-two portraits in a long pro- 
cession going around three sides of the great room, 
which must have been fifty feet in length. At the head 
of the apartment was a picture seven feet square, repre- 
senting a full-blooming lady in a long-bodied white 
satin dress, with an extraordinary structure of plumes 
and pearls on her head, accompanied by a stately little 
heir in a pink satin court suit, and several younger chil- 
dren. One grim, dark old man in red, farther down 
the hall, was " Roberto : Seigneur Dolce Acqua. Anno 
12*70." A dame in yellow brocade, with hoop, ruff, 
and jewels, and a little curly dog under her arm, was 
" Brigida : Domina Dolce Acqua. 1290." 

" So they carried dogs in that way then as well as 
now," observed Janet. 

The Mother Superior now came in. She informed us 
that this was the chateau of the Dorias, built after their 
castle was destroyed, and occupied by descendants of 
the family until a comparatively recent period. Its 
plain exterior, extending across one end of the little 
square, we had not especially distinguished from the 
other buildings which joined it, forming the usual con- 
tinuous wall of the Riviera towns. The chateau was 
now a convent and school. There were benches across 
one side of the large apartment where the village chil- 
dren were already assembled under the black -framed 
portraits, but there was not much, studying that day, I 
think, save a study of strangers. 

" Here is the real treasure," said Verney. 

It was a chimney-piece of stone, extending across one 



112 



end of the room, richly carved with various devices in 
relief, figures, and ornaments, and a row of heads on 
shields across the front, now the profile of an old beard- 
ed man looking out, and now that of a youth in armor. 
It was fifteen feet high, and a remarkably fine piece of 
work. 

" Quite thrown away here," said Miss Graves. 

" Oh, I don't know ; the portraits can see it," replied 
Janet. 

The Mother Superior conducted us all over the cha- 
teau, reserving only the corridor where were her own 
and the Sisters' apartments. The dignified stone stair- 
way with its broad stone steps extended unchanged to 
the top of the house. 

" In the matter of stairways," I said, " I must ac- 
knowledge that our New World ideas are deficient. 

o 

We have spacious rooms, broad windows, high ceilings, 
but such a stairway as this is beyond us." 

The empty sunny rooms above were gayly painted in 
fresco. At one end of the house a door opened into a 
little latticed balcony, into which we stepped, finding 
ourselves in an adjoining church, high up on the wall at 
one side of the altar. Here the Sisters came to pray, 
and as we departed, one of them glided in and knelt down 
in the dusky corner. 

" Perhaps she is going to pray for us," said Inness. 

" I am sure we need it," replied Janet, seriously. 

In the garret was a Sedan-chair, once elaborately 

gilded. 

© 

" I suppose they went down to Ventimiglia in that," 
said Baker — " those fine old dames below." 

From one of the rooms on the second floor opened a 
little cell or closet, part of whose flooring had been re- 
moved, showing a hollow space beneath following the 
massive exterior wall. 

" Here," said the Mother Superior, " the papers of 



1 i ' 



i ,i 



it*- 






V \V\ 




^ : lfer 



N^* 



PIFFERARI 



115 



the family were concealed at the approach of the first 
Napoleon, and not taken out for a number of years. 
The flooring- has never been replaced." 

The Mother Superior spoke only Italian, which Ver- 
ney translated, much to the envy of the younger men. 
The Professor was not with us, for as soon as he learned 
that the place was " papist " he departed, although In- 
ness suggested that the street was papist also, and like- 
wise the very air must be redolent of Rome. But the 
Professor was an example of " coelum, non animum, 
mutant, qui trans mare currunt," and quite determined 
to be as Protestant in Italy as he was in Connecticut. 
He would not desert his colors because under a foreign 
sky, as so many Americans desert them. 

The Mother now conducted us to a little square par- 
lor, with south windows opening upon a balcony full of 
pots of flowers ; the walls and ceiling of this little room 
were glowing with color — paintings in fresco more suit- 
ed to the Dorias, I fancy, than to the " Sisters of the 
Snow," for this was the poetical name of the little 
black-robed band. In this worldly little room we found 
wine waiting for us, and grapes which were almost 
raisins : we had never seen them in transition before. 
The wine was excellent, and Mrs. Trescott partook with 
much graciousness. After partaking, she employed 
Yerney in translating to the Mother a number of her 
own characteristic sentences. But Yerney must have 
altered them somewhat en route, for I hardly think the 
Mother would have remained so calmly placid if she had 
comprehended that " this whole scene — the grapes, the 
wine, and the frescos" — reminded Mrs. Trescott of 
" Cleopatra, and of Sardanapalus and his golden flag- 
ons." Presently two of the Sisters entered with coffee 
which they had prepared for us ; after serving it, they 
retired to a corner, where they stood gently regarding 
us. Then another entered, and then another, unobtru- 



116 



sively taking their places beside the others. It was in- 
teresting to notice the simplicity of their mild gaze ; 
although brown and middle-aged, their expression was 
like that of little children. When they learned that 
some of us were from America they were much im- 
pressed, and looked at each other silently. 

" I suppose it does not seem to them but a little 
while since Columbus discovered us," said Baker. 

At last it was time for us to go : we bade the little 
group farewell, and left some coins " for their poor." 

" Though we may not meet on earth, we shall see you 
all again in heaven," said the Mother, and all the. Sisters 
bowed assent. They accompanied us down to the outer 
door, and waved their hands in adieu as we crossed the 
little square. When, at the other side, we turned to 
look back, we saw their black skirts retiring up the 
stairway to their little school. 

" Farewell, Sisters of the Snow," said Janet. " May 
we all so live as to keep that rendezvous you have given 
us !" 

The carriages were now ordered, and Margaret and 
Lloyd summoned from the castle tower. We were 
standing at the door of the Desired Inn, collecting our 
baskets and wraps, when the Professor appeared with a 
long narrow parcel in his hand. This he stowed away 
carefully in one of the carriages, changing its position 
several times, as if anxious it should be carried safely. 
While he was thus engaged in his absorbed, near-sight- 
ed way, Inness came down the stone stairs from the up- 
per chamber, and going across to Janet, who was lean- 
ing on the parapet looking at the river, he was on the 
point of presenting something to her, when his little 
speech was stopped by the appearance of Baker coming 
around the corner from the front of the house, with a 
parcel exactly like his own. 

" Two !" cried Inness, bursting into a peal of laugh- 







MONACO — THE PALACE AND PORT 



119 



ter ; and then we saw, as he tore off the paper, that he 
had the old brass lamp which Janet had admired. 
Meanwhile Baker had another, the Desired Inn having 
been evidently equal to the occasion, and to driving a 
good bargain. Our laughter aroused the Professor, who 
turned and gazed at our group from the step of the car- 
riage. But having no idea of losing the credit of his 
unusual gallantry simply because some one else had had 
the same thought, he now extracted his own parcel and 
silently extended it. 

" A third !" cried Inness. And then we all gave 
way again. 

" I am so much obliged to you," said Janet, sweetly, 
when there was a pause, " but I am sorry you took the 
trouble. Because — because Mr. Verney has already 
kindly given me one, which is packed in one of the 
baskets." 

At this we laughed again, more irresistibly than be- 
fore — all, I mean, save Miss Elaine, who merely said, in 
the most unamused voice, " How very amusing !" As 
we had all admired the ancient lamp (although no one 
thought of offering it to us), the superfluous gifts easily 
found places among us, and were not the less thank- 
fully received because obtained in that roundabout 
way. 

We now left the " Sweet Waters " behind us, and 
went down the valley towards the sea. 

" There is another town as picturesque as Dolce 
Acqua some miles farther up the valley," said Verney. 
" 1 have a sketch of it. It is called Pigna." 

" Oh, let us go there !" said Janet. 

" We cannot, my daughter, spend the entire remain- 
der of our earthly existence among the Maritime Alps," 
said Mrs. Trescott. 

Inness had the place beside Janet all the way home. 

On the Cornice, a few miles from Mentone, we came 



120 



upon a boy and girl sitting by the road-side ; they had 
a flageolet and a sort of bagpipe, and wore the costume 
of Italian peasants, their foot-coverings being the com- 
plicated bands and strings which are, in American eyes 
(the strings transmuted into ribbons), indelibly asso- 
ciated with bandits. " They are pifferari," said Ver- 
ney ; and we stopped the carriages and asked them to 
play for us. The boy played on his flageolet, and the 
girl sang. As she stood beside us in the dust, her 
brown hands clasped before her, her great dark eyes 
never once stopped gazing at Janet, who, clad that day 
in a soft cream- white walking costume, with gloves, 
round hat, and plume of the same tint, looked not un- 
like a lily on its stem. The Italian girl was of nearly 
the same age in years, and of fully the same age in 
womanhood, and it seemed as if she could not remove 
her fascinated gaze from the fair white stranger. In- 
ness and Verney both tried to attract her attention ; 
but the boy gathered up the coins they dropped, and 
the girl gazed on. As the Professor was tired, and did 
not care for music, we drove onward ; but, as far as we 
could see, the Italian girl still stood in the centre of the 
road, gazing after the carriages. 

" What do you suppose is in her mind ?" I said. 
"Envy?" 

" Hardly," said Verney. " To her, probably, Miss 
Trescott is like a being from another world — a saint 
or Madonna." 

" Ah, Mr. Verney, what exaggerated comparisons !" 
said Miss Elaine, in soft reproach. "Besides, it is 
irreligious, and you promised me you would not be irre- 
ligious." 

Verney looked somewhat aghast at this revelation, of 
course overheard by Mrs. Clary and myself. It was 
rather hard upon him to have his misdeeds brought up 
in this way — the little sentimental speeches he had 




I i&« 



123 



made to Miss Elaine in the remote past — i.e., before 
Janet arrived. But lie was obliged to bear it. 

" I suppose," said Inness, one morning, " that you 
are not all going away from Mentone without even see- 
ing Mon — Monaco ?" 

" It can be seen from Turbia," answered the Profess- 
or, grimly. " And that view is near enough." 

Inness made a grimace, and the subject was dropped. 
But it ended in our seeing Turbia from Monaco, and not 
Monaco from Turbia. 

"There is no use in fighting against it," said Mrs. 
Clary, shrugging her shoulders. " You will have to go 
once. Every one does. There is a fate that drives 
you." 

" And the joke is," said Baker, in high glee, " that 
the Professor is going too. It seems that the view 
from Turbia was not near enough for him, after all." 

" I am not surprised," said Mrs. Clary. " I thought 
he would go : they all do. I have seen English deans, 
Swiss pastors, and American Presbyterian ministers 
looking on in the gambling-rooms, under the principle, 
I suppose, of knowing something of the evil they op- 
pose. They do not go but once; but that once they 
are very apt to allow themselves." 

The views along the Cornice west of Mentone are 
very beautiful. As we came in sight of Monaco, lying 
below in the blue sea, we caught its alleged resemblance 
to a vessel at anchor. 

" Monaco, or Portus HcVnCuHs Monceci, was well known 
to the ancients," said the\ Professor. " Its name ap- 
pears in Virgil, Tacitus, Pliny, Strabo, and other clas- 
sical writers. Before the invention of gunpowder its 
situation made it impregnable. It was one of the places 
of refuge in the long struggle between the Guelphs and 
Ghibellines" (we were rather discouraged by the ap- 



124 



pearance of these names so early in the day), " and it 
is mentioned by an Italian historian as having* become 
in the fourteenth century a • home for criminals ' and a 
1 gathering-place for pirates ' — terms equally applicable 
at the present day." The Professor's voice was very 
sonorous. 

Inness, the Professor, Janet, and myself were in a 
carriage together. As Mrs. Clary and Miss Graves did 
not accompany us that day, we had two carriages and a 
phaeton, the latter occupied by Lloyd and Verney. 

" As to Monaco history," remarked Inness, carelessly, 
when the Professor ceased, " I happen to remember a 
few items. The Grimaldis came next to Hercules, and 
have had possession here since a.d. 980. Marshal Bou- 
cicault, who was extremely devout, and never missed 
hearing two masses a day, besieged the place and took 
it before Columbus and the other Boucicault discovered 
America. In the reign of Louis the Fourteenth a Prince 
of Monaco was sent as ambassador to Rome, and en- 
tered that city with horses shod in silver, the shoes 
held by one nail only, so that they might drop the 
sooner. Another Prince of Monaco went against the 
Turks with his galleys, and brought back to this shore 
the inestimable gift of the prickly-pear, for which we 
all bless his memory whenever we brush against its 
cheerful thorns. Three Princes of Monaco were mur- 
dered in their own palace, which of course was much 
more home-like than being murdered elsewhere. The 
Duke of York died there also : not murdered, I believe, 
although there is a ghost in the story. The principal- 
ity is now three miles long, and the present prince re- 
tains authority under the jurisdiction of France. To 
preserve this authority he maintains a strictly disci- 
plined standing army (they never sit down) of ten 
able-bodied men." 

These sentences were rolled out by Inness with such 



125 



rapidity that I was quite bewildered ; as for the Pro- 
fessor, he was hopelessly stranded half-way down the 
list, and never came any farther. 

Passing Monte Carlo, we drove over to the palace. 

" Certainly there is no town on the Riviera so beau- 
tifully situated as Monaco," I said, as the road swept 
around the little port and ascended the opposite slope. 
" The high rock on which it stands, jutting out boldly 
into the sea, gives it all the isolation of an island, and 
yet protects by its peninsula this clear deep little har- 
bor within." 

The old town of Monaco proper is on the top of this 
rocky presqu'ile, three hundred feet above the sea, and 
west of Monte Carlo, the suburb of Condamine, and 
the chapel of St. Devote. Leaving the carriages, we 
entered the portal of the palace, conducted by a tenth 
of the standing army. 

" My first living and roofed palace," said Janet, as we 
ascended the broad flight of marble steps leading to the 
"Court of Honor," which was glowing with recently 
renewed frescos. A solemn man in black received us, 
and conducted us with much dignity through thirteen 
broad, long rooms, with ceilings thirty feet high — a 
procession of stately apartments which left upon our 
minds a blurred general impression of gilded vases, 
crimson curtains, slippery floors, ormolu clocks, wreaths 
of painted roses, fat Cupids, and uninhabitableness. 
The only trace of home life in all the shining vista 
was a little picture of the present Prince, taken when 
he was a baby, a life-like, chubby little fellow, smiling 
unconcernedly out on all this cold splendor. It was 
amusing to see how we women gathered around this 
little face, with a sort of involuntary comfort. 

In the Salle Grimaldi there was a vast chimney-piece 
of one block of marble covered with carved devices. 

In the room where the Duke of York died there 



126 



was a broad bed on a platform, curtained and canopied 
with heavy damask, and surrounded by a gilded railing. 
We stood looking at this structure in silence. 

"It is very impressive," murmured Mrs. Trescott at 
last. Then, with a long reminiscent sigh, as if she had 
been present and chief mourner on the occasion, she 
added : " There is nothing more inscrutable than the 
feet of the flying hours : they are winged ! — winged !" 

" On the whole," said Janet, as we went down the 




THE SALLE GRIMALDI, IN THE PALACE, MONACO 



127 



marble steps towards the army — " on the whole, taking- 
it as a palace, I am disappointed." 

"What did you expect?" said Verney. 

" Oh, all the age of chivalry," she answered, smiling. 

" The so-called age of chivalry — " began the Profess- 
or ; but he never finished ; because, by some unex- 
pected adjustment of places, he found himself in the 
phaeton with Baker, and that adventurous youth drove 
him over to Monte Carlo at such a speed that he could 
only close his eyes and hold on. 

The Casino of Monte Carlo is now the most impor- 
tant part of the principality of Monaco ; instead of be- 
ing subordinate to the palace, the latter has become but 
an appendage to the modern splendor across the bay. 
Monte Carlo occupies a site as beautiful as any in the 
world. In front the blue sea laves its lovely garden ; 
on the east the soft coast-line of Italy stretches away 
in the distance ; on the west is the bold curving rock 
of Monaco, with its castle and port, and the great cliff 
of the Dog's Head. Behind rises the near mountain 
high above ; and on its top, outlined against the sky, 
stands the old tower of Turbia in its lonely ruined maj- 
esty, looking towards Rome. 

" That tower is nineteen hundred feet above the 
sea," said the Professor. " It was built by the Romans, 
on the boundary between Liguria and Gaul, to com- 
memorate a victory gained by Augustus Caesar over 
the Ligurians. It was called Tropaeum Augusti, from 
which it has degenerated into Turbia. Fragments of 
the inscription it once bore have been found on stones 
built into the houses of the present village. The in- 
scription itself is, fortunately, fully preserved in Pliny, 
as follows : ' To Caesar, son of the divine Caesar Augus- 
tus, Emperor for the fourteenth time, in the seven- 
teenth year of his reign, the Senate and the Roman 
people have decreed this monument, in token that 



128 



under bis orders and auspices all the Alpine races have 
been subdued by Roman arms. Names of the van- 
quished :' and here follow the names of forty-five Al- 
pine races." 

At first we thought that the Professor was going to 
repeat them all; but although no doubt he knew them, 
he abstained. 

"The village behind the tower — we cannot see it, 
from here — seems to be principally built of fragments 
of the old Roman stone-work," said Lloyd. "I have 
been up there several times." 

" Then we do not see the Trophy as it was ?" I said. 

" No ; it is but a ruin, although it looks imposing 
from here. It was used as a fortress during the Mid- 
dle Ages, and partially destroyed by the French at the 
beginning of the last century." 

" It must have been majestic indeed, since, after all 
its dismemberment, it still remains so majestic now," 
said Margaret. 

We were standing on the steps of the Casino during 
this conversation ; I think we all rather made ourselves 
stand there, and talk about Turbia and the Middle Ages, 
because the evil and temptation we had come to see 
were so near us, and we knew that they were. We all 
had a sentence ready which we delivered impartially 
and carelessly ; but none the less we knew that we 
were going in, and that nothing would induce us to 
remain without. 

From a spacious, richly decorated entrance-hall, the 
gambling - rooms opened by noiseless swinging doors. 
Entering, we saw the tables surrounded by a close circle 
of seated players, with a second circle standing behind, 
playing over their shoulders, and sometimes even a 
third behind these. Although so many persons were 
present, it was very still, the only sounds being the 
chink, chink, of the gold and silver coins, and the dull, 




THE RIDE TO SANT AGNESE 



131 



mechanical voices of the officials announcing the win- 
ning- numbers. There were tables for both roulette 
and trente et quarante, the playing beginning each day 
at eleven in the morning and continuing without inter- 
mission until eleven at night. Everywhere was lavished 
the luxury of flowers, paintings, marbles, and the cost- 
liest decoration of all kinds ; beyond, in a superb hall, 
the finest orchestra on the Continent was playing the 
divine music of Beethoven ; outside, one of the loveli- 
est gardens in the world offered itself to those who 
wished to stroll awhile. And all of this was given 
freely, without restriction and without price, upon a 
site and under a sky as beautiful as earth can produce. 
But one sober look at the faces of the steady players 
around those tables betrayed, under all this luxury and 
beauty, the real horror of the place ; for men and 
women, young and old alike, had the gambler's strange 
fever in the expression of the eye, all the more intense 
because, in almost every case, so governed, so stonily 
repressed, so deadly cold ! After a half-hour of ob- 
servation, we left the rooms, and I was glad to breathe 
the outside air once more. The place had so struck to 
my heart, with its intensity, its richness, its stillness, 
and its terror, that I had not been able even to smile 
at the Professor's demeanor ; he had signified his dis- 
approbation (while looking at everything quite closely, 
however) by buttoning his coat up to the chin and 
keeping his hat on. I almost expected to see him 
open his umbrella. 

"To me, they seemed all mad," I said, with a shud- 
der, looking up at the calm mountains with a sense of 
relief. 

" It is a species of madness," said Verney. Miss 
Elaine was with him ; she had taken his arm while in 
the gambling - room ; she said she felt "so timid." 
Margaret and Lloyd meanwhile had only looked on for 



132 



a moment or two, and had then disappeared ; we learned 
afterwards that they had gone to the concert-room, 
where music beautiful enough for paradise was filling 
the perfumed air. 

"For those who care nothing for gambling, that 
music is one of the baits," said Lloyd. " When you 
really love music, it is very hard to keep away from it ; 
and here, where there is no other music to compete 
with it, it is offered to you in its divinest perfection, 
at an agreeable distance from Nice and Mentone, along 
one of the most beautiful driveways in the world, with 
a Parisian hotel at its best to give you, besides, what 
other refreshment you need. Hundreds of persons 
come here sincerely ' only to hear the music.' But few 
go away without ' one look ' at the gambling tables ; 
and it is upon that ' one look ' that the proprietors of 
the Casino, knowing human nature, quietly and secure- 
ly rely." 

The Professor, having seen it all, had no words to 
express his feeling, but walked across to call the car- 
riages with the air of a man who shook off perdition 
from every finger. And yet I felt sure, from what I 
knew of him, that he had appreciated the attractions of 
the place less than any one of us — had not, in fact, 
been reached by them at all. Those who do not feel 
the allurements of a temptation are not tempted. Not 
a grain in the Professor's composition responded to 
the invitation of the siren Chance ; they were not al- 
lurements to him ; they were but the fantastic phantas- 
magoria of a dream. The lovely garden he appreciated 
only botanically ; the view he could not see ; abstemi- 
ous by nature, he cared nothing for the choice rarities 
of the hotel ; while the music, the heavenly music, was 
to him no more than the housewife's clatter of tin 
pans. Yet I might have explained this to him all the 
way home, he would never have comprehended it, but 



133 



would have gone on thinking that it was simply, on his 
part, superior virtue and self-control. 

But I had no opportunity to explain, since I was not 
in the carriage with him, but with Janet, Inness, and 
Baker. Margaret and Lloyd drove homewards together 
in the phaeton ; and as they did not reach the hotel 
until dusk — long after our own arrival — I asked Mar- 
garet where they had been. 

" We stopped at the cemetery to watch the sunset 
beside my statue, aunt." 

" Why do you care so much for that marble figure ?" 

" I do not think she is quite marble," answered Mar- 
garet, smiling. " When I look at her, after a while 
she becomes, in a certain sense, responsive. To me she 
is like a dear friend." 

Another week passed, and another. And now the 
blossoms of the fruit-trees — a cloud of pink and snowy 
white — were gone, and the winter loiterers on the 
sunny shore began to talk of home ; or, if they were 
travellers who had but stopped awhile on the way to 
Italy, they knew now that the winds of the Apennines 
no longer chilled the beautiful streets of Florence, and 
that all the lilies were out. 

" Why could it not go on and on forever ? Why 
\ must there always come that last good-bye ?" quoted 
Mrs. Clary. 

'" Because life is so sad," said Margaret. 

" But I like to look forward," said Janet. 

" We shall meet again," said Lloyd. 

" The world," I remarked, sagely, " is composed of 
three classes of persons — those who live in the present, 
those who live in the past, and those who live in the 
future. The first class is the wisest." 

Our last excursion was to Sant' Agnese. This little 
mountain village was the highest point we attained on 
our donkeys, being two thousand two hundred feet 




VIEW FROM SANT' AGNESE 



above the sea. Its one rugged little street, cut in the 
side of the cliff, had an ancient weather-beaten little 
church at one end and a lonely chapel at the other, with 
the village green in the centre — a "green" which was 
but a smooth rock amphitheatre, with a parapet pro- 
tecting it from the precipice below. From this " green " 
there was a grand view of the mountains, with the 
sharp point of the Aiguille towering above them all. 
It was a village fete day, and we met the little proces- 
sion at the church door. First came the priests and 



135 



choir-boys, chanting ; then the village girls, dressed in 
white, and bearing upon a little platform an image of 
Saint Agnes ; then youths with streamers of colored 
ribbons on their arms ; and, last, all the villagers, two 
and two, dressed in their best, and carrying bunches 
of flowers. Through the winding rocky street they 
marched, singing as they went. When they arrived at 
the lonely chapel, Saint Agnes was borne in, and pray- 
ers were offered, in which the village people joined, 
kneeling on the ground outside, since there was not 
place for them within. Then forth came Saint Agnes 
again, a hymn was started, in which all took part, the 
little church bell pealed, and an old man touched off 
small heaps of gunpowder placed at equal distances 
along the parapet, their nearest approach, I suppose, to 
cannon. When the saint had reached her shrine again 
in safety, her journeyings over until the next year, the 
procession dissolved, and feasting began, the simple 
feasting of Italy, in which we joined so far as to par- 
take of a lunch in the little inn, which had a green 
bush as a sign over the narrow door — the " wine of the 
country" proving very good, however, in spite of the 
old proverb. Then, refreshed, we climbed up the steep 
path leading to the peak where was perched the ruin 
of the old castle which is so conspicuous from Men- 
tone, high in the air. This castle, the so-called " Sara- 
cen stronghold " of Sant' Agnese, pronounced, as Baker 
said, " either Frenchy to rhyme with lace, or Italianly 
to rhyme with lazy," seemed to me higher up in the 
sky than I had ever expected to be in the flesh. 

" As our interesting friend " (she meant the Pro- 
fessor) "is not here," said Mrs. Trescott, sinking in a 
breathless condition upon a Saracen block, " there is 
no one to tell us its history." 

" There is no history," said Yerney, " or, rather, no 
one knows it ; and to me that is its chief attraction. 



136 



There are, of course, legends in stacks, but nothing 
authentic. The Saracens undoubtedly occupied it for 
a time, and kept the whole coast below cowering under 
their cruel sway. But it is hardly probable that they 
built it ; they did not build so far inland ; they pre- 
ferred the shore." 

Our specified object, of course, in climbing that 
breathless path was " the view." 

Now there are various ways of seeing views. I have 
known " views " which required long gazing at points 
where there was nothing earthly to be seen: in such 
cases there was probably something heavenly. Other 
" views " reveal themselves only to two persons at a 
time ; if a third appears, immediately there is nothing 
to be seen. As to our own manner of looking at the 
Sant' Agnese view, I will mention that Mrs. Trescott 
looked at it from a snug corner, on a soft shawl, with 
her eyes closed. Mrs. Clary looked at it retrospectively, 
as it were ; she began phrases like these : " When I 
was here three years ago — " pause, sigh, full stop. 
"Once I was here at sunset — " ditto. Janet, on a re- 
mote rock, looked at it, I think, amid a little tragedy 
from Inness, interrupted and made more tragic by the 
incursions of Baker, who would not be frowned away. 
Verncy looked at it from a high niche in which he had 
incautiously seated himself for a moment, and now re- 
mained imprisoned, because Miss Elaine had placed her- 
self across the entrance so that he could not emerge 
without asking her to rise ; from this niche, like the 
tenor of Trovatore in his tower, he occasionally sent 
across a Miserere to Janet in the distance, like this: 
" Do you ob — serve, Miss Trescott, the col — ors of the 
lem — ons below ?" And Janet would gesture an assent. 
Lloyd and Margaret had found a place on a little pro- 
jecting plateau, where, with the warm sunshine flood- 
ing over them, they sat contentedly talking. Meanwhile 




a a 



FETE, TILLAGE OF SANT' AGNESE 



"V. 



\ v 



V 



\ 












139 



having neither sleep, retrospect, tragedy, Miserere, nor 
conversation with which to entertain myself, I really 
looked at the view, and probably was the only person 
who did. I had time enough for it. We remained 
there nearly two hours. 

At last our donkey-driver came up to tell us that 
dancing was going on below, and that there was not 
much time if we wished to see it, since the long home- 
ward journey still lay before us. So we elders began 
to call: "Janet!" "Janet!" "Margaret!" "Mr. Yer- 
ney !" And presently from the rock, the niche, and 
the plateau they came slowly in, Janet flushed, and 
Inness very pale, Baker like a thunder-cloud, Miss 
Elaine smiling and conscious, Yerney annoyed, Lloyd 
just as usual, and Margaret with a younger look in her 
face than I had seen there for months. In the little 
rock amphitheatre below we found the villagers merrily 
dancing; and some strangers like ourselves, who had 
come out from Mentone later, were amusing themselves 
by dancing also. Janet joined the circle with Baker, 
and Inness, after leaning on the parapet awhile, with 
his back to the dancers, gazing into space, disappeared. 
I think he went homeward by another path across the 
mountains. Miss Elaine admired " so much " Miss Tres- 
cott's courage in dancing before "so many strangers." 
She (Miss Elaine) was far " too shy to attempt it." 
But I did not notice that she was violently urged to 
the attempt. In the meantime Lloyd was looking at 
an English girl belonging to the other party, who was 
dancing near us. She was tall and shapely, with the 
beautiful English rose-pink complexion, and abundant 
light hair which had the glint of bronze where the sun 
shone across it. After a while, as the others came 
near, he recognized in one of them an acquaintance, 
who turned out to be the brother of the young lady 
w r ho had been dancino-. 



140 



When, as we returned, we reached the main street of 
Mentone, Margaret and I, who were behind, stopped a 
moment and looked back. The far peak of Sant' 
Agnese was flushed with rose-light, although where we 
were it was already night. 

" It does not seem as if we could have been there," I 
said. " It looks so far away." 

" Yes, we have been there," said Margaret ; u we 
have been there. But already it is far, far away." 







VESTIGKS OF ROMAN MONUMENTS 



141 



Mrs. Trescott found a letter awaiting her which made 
her decide to go forward to Florence on the following 
day. A great deal can happen in a short time when 
there is the pressure of a near departure. That even- 
ing Janet, who was dressed in white, had a great 
bunch of the sweet wild narcissus at her belt. I do 
not know anything certainly, of course, but I did meet 
Inness in the hall, about eleven o'clock, with a radiant, 
happy face, and some of that same narcissus in bis 
button-hole. He went with the Trescott's to Florence 
the next day. And Baker, with disgust, went to Nice. 
Soon afterwards Verney said that he felt that he re- 
quired " a closer acquaintance with early art," and de- 
parted without saying exactly whither. " Etruscan art, 
I believe, is considered extremely 'early,'" remarked 
Mrs. Clary. 

The Professor was to join the Trescotts later; at pres- 
ent he was much engaged with some cinerary urns. 
Miss Elaine, who was to remain a month longer with 
her mother, remarked to me, on one of the last morn- 
ings, that " really, for his age," he was a ll very well 
preserved man." 

Margaret and I remained for two weeks after Mrs. 
Trescott's departure. We saw Mr. Lloyd now and 
then ; but he was more frequently off with the English 
party. 

One afternoon I went with Margaret to watch the 
sunset from her favorite post beside the statue. She 
sought the place almost every evening now, and occa- 
sionally I went with her. We had never found any one 
there at that hour ; but this evening we heard voices, 
and came upon Lloyd and the English girl of Sant' 
Agnese, strolling to and fro. 

"I have brought Miss Read to see the view here, 
Miss Severin," he said; and then introductions fol- 
lowed, and we stood there together watching the beauti- 



142 



ful tints of sky and sea. The English girl talked in 
her English voice with its little rising and falling in- 
flections, so different from our monotonous American 
key. Margaret answered pleasantly, and, indeed, talked 
more than usual ; I was glad to see her interested. 

After a while Lloyd happened to stroll forward where 
he could see the face of the statue. Then, suddenly, 
" Wonderful !" he exclaimed. " Strange that I never 
thought of it before ! Do come here, please, and see 
for yourselves. There is the most extraordinary re- 
semblance between this statue and Miss Read." 

Then, as we all went forward, " Wonderful !" he 
repeated. 

Margaret said not a word. The English girl only 
laughed. " Surely you see it ?" he said. 

" There may be a little something about the mouth — " 
I began. 

But he interrupted me. " Why, it is perfect ! The 
statue is her portrait in marble. Miss Read, will you 
not let me place you in the same position, just for an 
instant ?" And, leading her to a little mound, he placed 
her in the required pose ; she had thrown off her hat to 
oblige him, and now clasped her hands and turned her 
eyes over the sea towards the eastern horizon. What 
was the result ? 

The only resemblance, as I had said, was about the 
mouth ; for the beautifully cut lips of the statue turned 
downward at the corners, and the curve of Miss Read's 
sweet baby-like mouth was the same. But that was all. 
Above was the woman's face in marble, beautiful, sad, 
full of the knowledge and the grief of life ; below was the 
face of a young girl, lovely, fresh, and bright, and know- 
ing no more of sorrow than a blush-rose upon its stem. 

" Exact !" said Lloyd. 

Miss Read laughed, rose, and resumed her straw hat; 
presently they went away. 




THE STATUE IN THE CEMETERY 



145 



" There was not the slightest resemblance," I said, 
almost with indignation. 

" People see resemblances differently," answered 
Margaret. Then, after a pause, she added, " She is, at 
least, much more like the statue than I am." 

"Not in the spirit, dear," 1 said, much touched; for 
I saw that as she spoke the rare tears had filled her 
eyes. But they did not fall ; Margaret had a great deal 
of self-control ; perhaps too much. 

Then there was a silence. " Shall we go now, aunt ?" 
she said, after a time. And we never spoke of the 
subject again. 

" Look, look, Margaret ! the palms of Bordighera !" I 
said, as our train rushed past. It was our last of 
Mentone. 



CAIRO IN 1890 



CAIRO IN 1890 



HE way to Egypt is long and 
vexatious " — so Homer sings ; 
and so also have sung other per- 
sons more modern. A chop- 
ping sea prevails off Crete, and 
whether one leaves Europe at 
Naples, Brindisi, or Athens, 
one's steamer soon reaches that 
beautiful island, and consumes 
in passing it an amount of time 
which is an ever-fresh surprise. 
Crete, with its long coast-line 
and soaring mountain-tops, ap- 
pears to fill all that part of 
the sea. However, as the isl- 
and is the half-way point be- 
tween Europe and Africa, one 
can at least feel, after finally 
leaving it behind, that the 
Egyptian coast is not far dis- 
tant. This coast is as indolent 
as that of Crete is aggressive ; 
it does not raise its head. You 
are there before you see it or 
know it ; and then, if you like, 
in something over three hours more you can be in Cairo. 
The Cairo street of the last Paris Exhibition, familiar 




CONTEMPORARY PORTRAIT 
OF CLEOPATRA 

On the wall of the Temple at 
Denderah. — From a photo- 
graph by Sebah, Cairo. 



150 



to many Americans, was a clever imitation. But imi- 
tations of the Orient are melancholy ; you cannot trans- 
plant the sky and the light. 

The real Cairo has been sacrificed to the Nile. 
Comparatively few among travellers in the East see 
the place under the best conditions ; for upon their 
arrival they are preoccupied with the magical river 
voyage which beckons them southward, with the 
dahabeeyah or the steamer which is to carry them ; 
and upon their return from that wonderful journey 
they are planning for the more difficult expedition 
to the Holy Land. It is safe to say that to many 
Americans Cairo is only a confused memory of don- 
keys and dragomans, mosquitoes and dervishes, and 
mosques, mosques, mosques ! This hard season prob- 
ably must be gone through by all. The wise are those 
who stay on after it is over, or who return ; for the 
true impression of a place does not come when the 
mind is overcrowded and confused ; it does not come 
when the body is wearied ; for the descent of the vis- 
ion, serenity of soul is necessary — one might even call 
it idleness. It is during those days when one does 
nothing that the reality steals noiselessly into one's 
comprehension, to remain there forever. 

But is Cairo worth this? is asked. That depends 
upon the temperament. If one must have in his nat- 
ure somewhere a trace of the poet to love Venice, so 
one must be at heart something of a painter to love 
Cairo. Her colors are so softly rich, the Saracenic part 
of her architecture is so fantastically beautiful, the fig- 
ures in her streets are so picturesque, that one who has 
an eye for such effects seems to himself to be living 
in a gallery of paintings without frames, which stretch 
off in vistas, melting into each other as they go. If, 
therefore, one loves color, if pictures are precious to 
him, are important, let him go to Cairo ; he will find 



151 



pleasure awaiting him. Flaubert said that one could 
imagine the pyramids, and perhaps the Sphinx, with- 
out an actual sight of them, but that what one could 
not in the least imagine was the expression on the face 
of an Oriental barber as he sits cross-legged before his 
door. That is Cairo exactly. You must see her with 
the actual eyes, and you must see her without haste. 
She does not reveal herself to the Cook tourist nor 
even to Gaze's, nor to the man who is hurrying off to 
Athens on a fixed day which nothing can alter. 

THE NEW QUARTER 

(One must begin with this, and have it over.) Cairo 
has a population of four hundred thousand souls. The 
new part of the town, called Ismailia, has been persist- 
ently abused by almost all writers, who describe it as 
dusty, as shadeless, as dreary, as glaring, as hideous, 
as blankly and broadly empty, as adorned with half- 
built houses which are falling into ruin — one has read 
all this before arriving. But what does one find in 
the year of grace 1890? Streets shaded by innumera- 
ble trees ; streets broad indeed, but which, instead of 
being dusty, are wet (and over-wet) with the constant 
watering ; well-kept, bright-faced houses, many of them 
having beautiful gardens, which in January are glow- 
ing with giant poinsettas, crimson hibiscus, and purple 
bougainvillea — flowers which give place to richer blooms, 
to an almost over-luxuriance of color and perfumes, as 
the early spring comes on. If the streets were paved, 
it would be like the outlying quarters of Paris, for most 
of the houses are French as regards their architecture. 
Shadeless? It is nothing but shade. And the princi- 
pal drives, too, beyond the town — the Ghezireh road, 
the Choubra and Gizeh roads, and the long avenue 
which leads to the pyramids — are deeply embowered, 



152 



the great arms of the trees which border them meet- 
ing and interlacing overhead. Consider the stony 
streets of Italian cities (which no one abuses), and 
then talk of " shadeless Cairo " ! 



THE CLIMATE 

If one wishes to spend a part of each day in the 
house, engaged in reading, writing, or resting ; if the 
comfortable feeling produced by a brightly burning 
little fire in the cool of the evening is necessary to him 
for his health or his pleasure — then he should not at- 
tempt to spend the entire winter in the city of the 
Khedive. The mean temperature there during the 
cold season — that is, six weeks in January and 
February — is said to be 58° Fahrenheit. But this 
is in the open air ; in the houses the temperature is 
not more than 54° or 52°, and often in the even- 
ing lower. The absence of fires makes all the diffi- 
culty ; for out-of-doors the air may be and often 
is charming ; but upon coming in from the bright 
sunshine the atmosphere of one's sitting-room and 
bedroom seems chilly and prison -like. There are, 
generally speaking, no chimneys in Cairo, even in the 
modern quarter. Each of the hotels has one or two 
open grates, but only one or two. Southern countries, 
however, are banded together — so it seems to the shiv- 
ering Northerner — to keep up the delusion that they 
have no cold weather ; as they have it not, why pro- 
vide for it ? In Italy in the winter the Italians spread 
rugs over their floors, hang tapestries upon their walls, 
pile cushions everywhere, and carpet their sofas with 
long-haired skins ; this they call warmth. But a fire- 
less room, with the thermometer on its walls standing 
at 35°, is not warm, no matter how many cushions 
you may put into it; and one hates to believe, too, 



153 



that necessary accompaniments of health are roughened 
faces and frost-bitten noses, and the extreme ugliness 
of hands swollen and red. " Perhaps if one could 
have in Cairo an open hearth and three sticks, it would, 
with all the other pleasures which one finds here, be 
too much — would reach wickedness !" was a remark 
we heard last winter. A still more forcible exclama- 
tion issued from the lips of a pilgrim from New York 
one evening in January. Looking round her sitting-room 
upon the roses gathered that day in the open air, 
upon the fly-brushes and fans and Oriental decorations, 
this misguided person moaned, in an almost tearful 
voice : " Oh, for a blizzard and a fire /" The reasonable 
traveller, of course, ought to remember that with a cli- 
mate which has seven months of debilitating heat, and 
three and a half additional months of summer weather, 
the attention of the natives is not strongly turned tow- 
ards devices for warmth. This consideration, how- 
ever, does not make the fireless rooms agreeable during 
the few weeks that remain. 

Another surprise is the rain. "In our time it rained 
in Egypt," writes Strabo, as though chronicling a mira- 
cle. Either the climate has changed, or Strabo was not 
a disciple of the realistic school, for in the January of 
this truthful record the rain descended in such a del- 
uge in Cairo that the water came above the knees of 
the horses, and a ferry-boat was established for two 
days in one of the principal streets. Later the rain de- 
scended a second time with almost equal violence, 
and showers were by no means infrequent. (It may 
be mentioned in parenthesis that there was heavy rain 
at Luxor, four hundred and fifty miles south of Cairo, 
on the 19th of February.) One does not object to these 
rains; they are in themselves agreeable; one wishes 
simply to note the impudence of the widely diffused 
statement that Egypt is a rainless land. So far nothing 




THE NILE BRIDGE, CAIRO 
From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo 



has been said against 
the winter climate of 
Cairo ; objection has 
been made merely to 
the fireless condition 
of the houses — a fault 
which can be reme- 
died. But now a real 
enemy must be men- 
tioned — namely, the 
kamsin. This is a hot 
wind from the south, which parches the skin and 
takes the life out of one ; it fills the air with a 
thick grayness, which you cannot call mist, because 
it is perfectly dry, and through which the sun goes 
on steadily shining, with a light so weird that one 
can think of nothing but the feelings of the last 
man, or the opening of the sixth seal. The reg- 
ular kamsin season does not begin before May ; the 
occasional days of it that bring suffering to travel- 



155 



lers occur in February, March, and April. But what are 
five or six days of kamsin amid four winter months 
whose average temperature is 58° Fahrenheit? It is 
human nature to detect faults in climates which have 
been greatly praised, just as one counts every freckle 
on a fair face that is celebrated for its beauty. Give 
Cairo a few hearth fires, and its winter climate will 
seem delightful ; although not so perfect as that of Flori- 
da, in our country, because in Florida there are no Jan- 
uary mosquitoes. 

MOSQUES 

It must be remembered that Cairo is Arabian. " The 
Nile is Egypt," says a proverb. The Nile is mythical, 
Pharaonic, Ptolemaic ; but Cairo owes its existence 
solely to the Arabian conquerors of the country, who 
built a fortress and palace here in a.d. 969. 

Very Arabian is still the call to prayer which is 
chanted by the muezzins from the miuarets of the 
mosques several times during the day. We were 
passing through a crowded quarter near the Mooski 
one afternoon in January, when there was wafted across 
the consciousness a faint, sweet sound. It was far away, 
and one heard it half impatiently at first, unwilling to 
lift one's attention even for an instant from the motley 
scenes nearer at hand. But at length, teased into it by 
the very sweetness, we raised our eyes, and then it was 
seen that it came from a half-ruined minaret far above 
us. Round the narrow outer gallery of this slender 
tower a man in dark robes was pacing slowly, his arms 
outstretched, his face upturned to heaven. Not once did 
he look below as he continued his aerial round, his voice 
giving forth the chant which we had heard — " Allah 
akbar; Allah akbar; la Allah ill' Allah. Heyya alas- 
salah !" (God is great ; God is great ; there is no 



156 



God but God, and Mohammed is his prophet. Come 
to prayer.) Again, another day, in the old Touloun 
quarter, we heard the sound, but it was much nearer. 
It came from a window but little above our heads, the 
small mosque within the quadrangle having no minaret. 
This time I could note the muezzin himself. As he could 
not see the sky from where he stood, his eyes were 
closed. I have never beheld a more concentrated ex- 
pression of devotion than his quiet face expressed ; he 
might have been miles away from the throng below, in- 
stead of three feet, as his voice gave forth the same strange, 
sweet chant. The muezzins are often selected from the 
ranks of the blind, as the duties of the office are within 
their powers ; but this singer at the low window had 
closed his eyes voluntarily. The last time I saw the 
muezzin was towards the end of the season, when the 
spring was far advanced. Cairo gayety was at its 
height, the streets were crowded with Europeans re- 
turning from the races, the new quarter was as modern 
as Paris. But there are minarets even in the new 
quarter, or near it ; and on one of the highest of these 
turrets, outlined against the glow of the sunset, I saw 
the slowly pacing figure, with its arms outstretched over 
the city — " Allah akbar ; Allah akbar ; come, come to 
prayer." 

There are over four hundred mosques in Cairo, and 
many of them are in a dilapidated condition. Some of 
these were erected by private means to perpetuate the 
name and good deeds of the founder and his family ; 
then, in the course of time, owing to the extinction or 
to the poverty of the descendants, the endowment fund 
has been absorbed or turned into another channel, and 
the ensuing neglect has ended in ruin. When a pious 
Muslim of to-day wishes to perform a good work, he 
builds a new mosque. It would never occur to him to 
repair the old one near at hand, which commemo- 



157 



rates the generosity of another man. It must be re- 
membered that a mosque has no established congre- 
gation, whose duty it is to take care of it. A mosque, 
in fact, to Muslims has not an exclusively religious 
character. It is a place prepared for prayer, with the 
fountain which is necessary for the preceding ablutions 
required by Mohammed, and the niche towards Mecca 
which indicates the position which the suppliant must 
take ; but it is also a place for meditation and repose. 
The poorest and most ragged Muslim has the right to 
enter whenever he pleases; he can say his prayers, or 
he can simply rest ; he can quench his thirst ; he can 
eat the food which he has brought with him ; if he is 
tired, he can sleep. In mosques not often visited by 
travellers I have seen men engaged in mending their 
clothes, and others cooking food with a portable 
furnace. In the church-yard of Charlton Kings, Eng- 
land, there is a tombstone of the last century with an 
inscription which concludes as follows : " And his die- 
ing request to his Sons and Daughters was, Never for- 
sake the Charitys until the Poor had got their Rites." 
In the Cairo mosques the poor have their rites — both 
with the gh and without. The sacred character of a 
mosque is, in truth, only made conspicuous when un- 
believers wish to enter. Then the big shuffling slippers 
are brought out to cover the shoes of the Christian in- 
fidels, so that they may not touch and defile the mat- 
tings reserved for the faithful. 

After long neglect, something is being done at last 
to arrest the ruin of the more ancient of these temples. 
A commission has been appointed by the present 
government whose duty is the - preservation of the 
monuments of Arabian art ; occasionally, therefore, in 
a mosque one finds scaffolding in place and a general 
dismantlement. One can only hope for the best — in 
much the same spirit in which one hopes when one 



158 



sees the beautiful old front of St. Mark's, Venice, 
gradually encroached upon by the new raw timbers. 
But in Cairo, at least, the work of repairing goes on 
very slowly; three hundred mosques, probably, out of 
the four hundred still remain untouched, and many of 
these are adorned with a delicate beauty which is un- 
rivalled. I know no quest so enchanting as a search 
through the winding lanes of the old quarters for these 
gems of Saracenic taste, which no guide-book has as 

yet chronicled, no 






g? 



dragoman discover- 
ed. The street is so 
narrow that your 
donkey fills almost 
all the space ; pass- 
ers-by are obliged 
to flatten themselves 
against the walls in 
response to the Ori- 
ental adjurations of 
your donkey-boy be- 
hind: "Take heed, 
O maid !" " Your 




BEFORE THE LITTf-E MOSQUE 

From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo 



159 



foot, chief !" Presently you see a minaret — there is 
always a minaret somewhere ; but it is not always 
easy to find the mosque to which it belongs, hidden, 
perhaps, as it is, behind other buildings in the crowded 
labyrinth. At length you observe a door with a dab 
or two of the well-known Saracenic honeycomb-work 
above it ; instantly you dismount, climb the steps, and 
look in. You are almost sure to find treasures, either 
fragments of the pearly Cairo mosaic, or a wonderful 
ceiling, or gilded Kufic (old Arabian text) inscriptions 
and arabesques, or remains of the ancient colored 
glass which changes its tint hour by hour. Best of all, 
sometimes you find a space open to the sky, with a 
fountain in the centre, the whole surrounded by arcades 
of marble columns adorned with hanging lamps (or, 
rather, with the bronze chains which once carried the 
lamps), and with suspended ostrich, eggs — the emblems 
of good-luck. One day, when my donkey was making 
his way through a dilapidated region, I came upon a 
mosque so small that it seemed hardly more than a 
base for its exquisite minaret, which towered to an 
unusual height above it. Of course I dismounted. The 
little mosque was open ; but as it was never visited by 
strangers, it possessed no slippers, and without cover- 
ings of some kind it was impossible that unsanctified 
shoes, such as mine, should touch its matted floor ; the 
bent, ancient guardian glared at me fiercely for the 
mere suggestion. One sees sometimes (even in 1890) 
in the eyes of old men sitting in the mosques the 
original spirit of Islam shining still. Once their religion 
commanded the sword; they would like to grasp it 
again, if they could. It was suggested that the mat- 
ting might, for a backsheesh, be rolled up and put away, 
as the place was small. But the stern old keeper re- 
mained inflexible. Then the offer was made that so 
many piasters — ten (that is, fifty cents) — would be given 



160 



to the blind. Now the blind are sacred in Cairo ; this 
offer, therefore, was successful* all the matting was 
carefully rolled and stacked in a corner, the three or 
four Muslims present withdrew to the door, and the un- 
believer was allowed to enter. She found herself in a 
temple of color which was incredibly rich. The floor 
was of delicate marble, and every inch of the walls was 
covered with a mosaic of porphyry and jasper, adorned 
with gilded inscriptions and bands of Kufic text; the 
tall pulpit, made of mahogany-colored wood, was carved 
from top to bottom in intricate designs, and ornamented 
with odd little plaques of fretted bronze ; the sacred 
niche was lined with alabaster, turquoise, and gleaming 
mother-of-pearl ; the only light came through the thick 
glass of the small windows far above, in downward- 
falling rays of crimson, violet, and gold. The old 
mosaic-work of the Cairo mosques is composed of small 
plates of marble and of mother-of-pearl arranged in 
geometrical designs; the delicacy of the minute cubes 
employed, and the intricacy of the patterns, are marvel- 
lous ; the color is faint, unless turquoise has been added ; 
but the glitter of the mother-of-pearl gives the whole 
an appearance like that of jewelry. Upon our depart- 
ure five blind men were found drawn up in a line at 
the door. It would not have been difficult to collect 
fifty. 

Another day, as my donkey was taking me under a 
stone arch, I saw on one side a flight of steps which 
seemed to say " Come !" At the top of the steps I 
found a picture. It was a mosque of the early pattern, 
with a large square court open to the sky. In the cen- 
tre of this court was a well, under a marble dome, and 
here grew half a dozen palm-trees. Across the far end 
extended the sanctuary, which was approached through 
arcades of massive pillars painted in dark red bands. 
The pulpit was so old that it had lost its beauty ; but 




TOMB-MOSQUE OP KAIT BEY 



163 



the entire back wall of this Mecca side was covered 
with beautiful tiles of the old Cairo tints (turquoise-blue 
and dark blue), in designs of foliage, with here and there 
an entire tree. This splendid wall was in itself worth 
a journey. A few single tiles had been inserted at ran- 
dom in the great red columns, reminding one of the 
majolica plates which tease the eyes of those who care 
for such things — set impossibly high as they are — in 
the campaniles of old Italian churches along the Pisan 
coast. 

It may be asked, What is the shape of a mosque — 
its exterior ? What is it like ? You are more sure 
about this shape before you reach the Khedive's city 
than you are when you have arrived there ; and after 
you have visited three or four mosques each day for a 
week, the clearness of your original idea, such as it was, 
has vanished forever. The mosques of Cairo are so 
embedded in other structures, so surrounded and pushed 
and elbowed by them, that you can see but little of 
their external form; sometimes a facade painted in 
stripes is visible, but often a doorway is all. One must 
except the mosque of Sultan Hassan (which, to some 
of us, is dangerously like Aristides the Just). This 
mosque stands by itself, so that you can, if you please, 
walk round it. The chief interest of the walk (for the 
exterior, save for the deep porch, which can hardly be 
called exterior, is not beautiful) lies in the thought that 
as the walls were constructed of stones brought from the 
pyramids, perhaps among them, with faces turned in- 
ward, there may be blocks of that lost outer coating of 
the giant tombs — a coating which was covered with 
hieroglyphics. Now that hieroglyphics can be read, we 
may some day learn the true history of these monu- 
ments by pulling down a dozen of the Cairo mosques. 
But unless the commission bestirs itself, that task will 
not be needed for the edifice of Sultan Hassan : it is 



164 



coming down, piece by piece, unaided. The mosques 
of Cairo are not beautiful as a Greek temple or an early 
English cathedral is beautiful ; the charm of Saracenic 
architecture lies more in decoration than in the manage- 
ment of massive forms. The genius of the Arabian build- 
ers manifested itself in ornament, in rich effects of color ; 
they had endless caprices, endless fancies, and expressed 
them all — as well they might, for all were beautiful. 
The same free spirit carved the grotesques of the old 
churches of France and Germany. But the Arabians 
had no love for grotesques ; they displayed their liberty 
in lovely fantasies. Their one boldness as architects 
was the minaret. 

It is probably the most graceful tower that has ever 
been devised. In Cairo the rich fretwork of its dec- 
orations and the soft yellow hue of the stone of which 
it is constructed add to this beauty. Invariably slender, 
it decreases in size as it springs towards heaven, carry- 
ing lightly with it two or three external galleries, which 
are supported by stalactites, and ending in a miniature 
cupola and crescent. These stalactites (variously 
named, also, pendentives, recessed clusters, and honey- 
combed work) may be called the distinctive feature of 
Saracenic architecture. They were used originally as or- 
naments to mask the transition from a square court to 
the dome. But they soon took flight from that one 
service, and now they fill Arabian corners and angles 
and support Arabian curves so universally that for many 
of us the mere outline of one scribbled on paper brings 
up the whole pageant of the crescent-topped domes and 
towers of the East. 

The Cairo mosques are said to show the purest exist- 
ing forms of Saracenic architecture. One hopes that 
this saying is true, for a dogmatic superlative of this 
sort is a rock of comfort, and one can remember it 
and repeat it. With the best of memories, however, 



165 



one cannot intelligently see all these specimens of 
purity, unless, indeed, one takes up his residence in 
Cairo (and it is well known that when one lives in a 
place one never pays visits to those lions which other 
persons journey thousands of miles to see). Travellers, 
therefore, very soon choose a favorite and abide by it, 
vaunting it above all others, so that you hear of El 
Ghouri, with its striking facade and magnificent ceiling, 
as "the finest," and of Kalaoon as "the finest," and of 
Moaiyud as ditto ; not to speak of those who prefer the 
venerable Touloun and Amer, and the undiscriminating 
crowd that is satisfied, and rightly, with Aristides the 
Just — that is, the mosque of Sultan Hassan. For my- 
self, after acknowledging to a weakness for the mosques 
which are not in the guide-books, which possess no 
slippers, I confess that I admire most the tomb-mosque 
of Kait Bey. It is outside of Cairo proper, among 
those splendid half-ruined structures the so-called 
tombs of the Khalifs. It stands by itself, its chiselled 
dome and minaret, a lace-work in stone, clearly revealed. 
It would take pages to describe the fanciful beauty of 
every detail, both without and within, and there must, 
in any case, come an end of repeating the words " ele- 
gance," " mosaic," " minaret," " arabesque," " jasper," 
and " mother-of-pearl." The chief treasures of this 
mosque are two blocks of rose granite which bear the 
so-called impressions of the feet of Mohammed ; the 
legend is that he rests here for a moment or two at 
sunset every Thursday. " How well I understand this 
fancy of the prophet !" exclaimed an imaginative visitor. 
" How I wish I could do the same I" 

THE GIZEH MUSEUM 

One of the great events of the winter of 1890 was 
the opening of the new Museum of Egyptian Antiqui- 



166 



ties at Gizeh. This magnificent collection, which until 
recently has been ill-housed at Boulak, is now installed 
in another suburb, Gizeh, in one of the large summer 
palaces built by the former Khedive, Ismail. To reach 
it one passes through the new quarter and crosses 
the handsome Nile bridge. Not only are all these 
streets watered, but the pedestrian also can have water 
if he likes. Large earthen jars, propped by framework 
of wood, stand here and there, with the drinking-bottle, 
or kulleh, attached; these jars are replenished by the 
sakkahs, who carry the much -loved Nile water about 
the streets for sale. One passes at regular intervals 
the light stands, made of split sticks, upon which is 
offered for sale, in flat loaves like pancakes, the Cairo 
bread. There are also the open-air cook shops — small 
furnaces, like a tin pan with legs ; spread out on a 
board before them are saucers containing mysterious 
compounds, and the cook is in attendance, wearing a 
white apron. These cooks never lack custom ; a large 
majority of the poorer class in Cairo obtains its hot 
food, when it obtains it at all, at these impromptu tables. 
Before long one is sure to meet a file of camels. The 
camel ought to appreciate travellers ; there is always a 
tourist murmuring " Oh !" whenever one of these su- 
percilious beasts shows himself near the Ezbekiyeh 
Gardens. The American, indeed, cannot keep back the 
exclamation ; perhaps when he was a child he attended 
(oh, happy day !) the circus, and watched with ecstasy 
the "Grande Orientale Rentree of the Lights of the 
Harem" — two of these strange steeds, ridden by daz- 
zling houris in veils of glittering gauze. The camel has 
remained in his mind ever since as the attendant of sul- 
tanas ; though this impression may have become mixed 
in later years with the constantly recurring painting (in 
a dead-gold frame and red mat) of a camel and an Arab 
in the desert, outlined against a sunset sky. In either 



169 



case, however, the animal represents something which 
is as far as possible from an American street traversed 
by horse-cars, and when the inhabitant of this street 
sees the identical creature passing him, engaged not in 
making rentrees or posing against the sunset, but dil- 
igently at work carrying stones and mortar for his liv- 
ing, no wonder he feels that he has reached a land of 
dreams. 

Most of us do not lose our admiration for the Orient- 
alness of the camel. But we learn in time that he 
has been praised for qualities which he does not pos- 
sess. He is industrious, but he continually scolds about 
his industry ; he may not trouble one with his thirst, 
but he revenges himself by his sneer. The smile of a 
camel is the most disdainful thing I know. On the 
other side of the Nile bridge one comes sometimes 
upon an acre of these beasts, all kneeling down in the 
extraordinary way peculiar to them, with their hind- 
legs turned up ; here they chew as they rest, and put 
out their long necks to look at the passers-by. But the 
way to appreciate the neck of a camel is to be on a 
donkey ; then, when the creature comes up behind and 
lopes past you, his neck seems to be the highest thing 
in Cairo — higher than a mosque. 

Beyond the bridge the road to Gizeh follows the 
river. Gizeh itself is the typical Nile village, with the 
low, clustered houses built of Nile mud (which looks 
like yellow-brown stucco), and beautiful feathery palms 
with a minaret or two rising above. The palace stands 
apart from the village, and is surrounded by large gar- 
dens. Opposite the central portico is the tomb of Ma- 
riette Pasha, the founder of the museum — a high sar- 
cophagus designed from an antique model. Mariette 
Pasha (it may be mentioned here that the title Pasha 
means General, and that of Bey, Colonel) was a native 
of Boulogne. A mummy case in the museum of that 



170 



town of schools first attracted his attention towards 
Egyptian antiquities, and in 1850 he came to Egypt. 
Khedive Said authorized him to found a museum ; and 
Said's successor, Ismail, conferred upon him the exclu- 
sive right to make excavations, placing in his charge all 
the antiquities of Egypt. Mariette used these powers 
with intelligence and energy, giving the rest of his life 
to the task — a period of thirty years. He died in Cairo, 
at the age of sixty-one, in January, 1882. This French- 
man made many important discoveries, and he pre- 
served to Egypt her remaining antiquities ; before his 
time her treasures had been stolen and bought by all 
the world. A thought which haunts all travellers in 
this strange country is, how many more rich stores 
must still remain hidden ! The most generally inter- 
esting among the recent discoveries was the finding of 
the Pharaohs, in 1881. The story has been given to 
the world in print, therefore it will be only outlined 
here. But by far the most fortunate way is to hear it 
directly from the lips of the keeper of the museum, 
Emil Brugsch Bey himself, his vivid, briefly direct nar- 
ration adding the last charm to the striking facts. By 
the museum authorities it had been for several years 
suspected that some one at Luxor (Thebes) had discov- 
ered a hitherto unopened tomb ; for funeral statuettes, 
papyri, and other objects, all of importance, were of- 
fered for sale there, one by one, and bought by travel- 
lers, who, upon their return to Cairo, displayed the 
treasures, without comprehending their value. Watch 
was kept, and suspicion finally centred upon a family 
of brothers ; these Arabs at last confessed, and one of 
them led the way to a place not far from the temple 
called Deir-el-Bahari, which all visitors to Thebes will 
remember. Here, filled with sand, there was a shaft 
not unlike a well, which the man had discovered by 
chance. When the sand was removed, the opening of a 



171 



lateral tunnel was visible below, and tliis tunnel led 
into tlie heart of the hill, where, in a rude chamber 
twenty feet high, were piled thirty or more mummy 
cases, most of them decorated with the royal asp. The 
mummies proved to be those of Sethi the First, the 
conqueror who carried his armies as far into Asia as 
the Orontes ; and of Rameses the Great (called Sesostris 
by the Greeks), the Pharaoh who oppressed the Israel- 
ites ; and of Sethi the Second, the Pharaoh of the Ex- 
odus, together with other sovereigns and members of 
their families, princes, princesses, and priests. At some 
unknown period these mummies had been taken from 
the magnificent rock tombs in that terrible Apocalyptic 
Valley of the Kings, not far distant, and hidden in this 
rough chamber. No one knows why this was done ; a 
record of it may yet be discovered. But in time all 
knowledge of the hiding-place was lost, and here the 
Pharaohs remained until that July day in 1881. They 
were all transported across the burning plain and down 
the Nile to Cairo. Now at last they repose in state in 
an apartment which might well be called a throne-room. 
You reach this great cruciform hall by a handsome 
double stairway ; upon entering, you see the Pharaohs 
ranged in a majestic circle, and careless though you 
may be, unhistorical, practical, you are impressed. The 
features are distinct. Some of the dark faces have dig- 
nity ; others show marked resolution and power. Curi- 
ously enough, one of them closely resembles Voltaire. 
This, however, is probably due to the fact that Vol- 
taire closely resembled a mummy while living. How 
would it seem, the thought that beings who are to 
come into existence a.d. 5000 should be able, in the 
land which we now call the United States of America 
(what will it be called then ?), to gaze upon the features 
of some of our Presidents — for instance, George Wash- 
ington and Abraham Lincoln? I am afraid that the 



172 



fancy is not as striking as it should be, for New World 
ambition grasps without difficulty all futures, even a.d. 
25,000 ; it is only when our eyes are turned towards 
the past, where we have no importance and represent 
nothing, that an enumeration of centuries overpowers 
us — a little. But in any case, after visiting Egypt, we 
all learn to hate the art of the embalmer ; those who 
have been up the Nile, and beheld the poor relics of 
mortality offered for sale on the shores, become, as it 
were by force, advocates of cremation. 

The Gizeh Museum is vast ; days are required to see 
all its treasures. Among the best of these are two col- 




STATUE OF PRINCE RAHOTEP's WIFE 

Gizeh Museum.— Discovered in 1870 in a tomb near Mey doom.— According to 
the chronological table of Mariette, it is 5800 years old.— From a photograph 
by Sebah, Cairo. 



ored statues, the size of life, representing Prince Ra- 
hotep and his wife ; these were discovered in 1870 in a 
tomb near Meydoom. Their rock-crystal eyes are so 



173 



bright that the Arabs employed in the excavation 
fled in terror when they came upon the long-hidden 
chamber. They said that two afreets were sitting there, 
ready to spring out and devour all intruders. Railed 
in from his admirers is the intelligent, well-fed, highly 
popular wooden man, whose life-like expression raises a 
smile upon the faces of all who approach him. This fig- 
ure is not in the least like the Egyptian statues of con- 
ventional type, with unnaturally placed eyes. As regards 
the head, it might be the likeness of a Berlin merchant 
of to-day, or it might be a successful American bank 
president after a series of dinners at Delmonico's. 
Yet, strange to say, this, and the wonderful diorite 
statue of Chafra, are the oldest sculptured figures in 
the world. 

One is tempted to describe some of the other treas- 
ures of this precious and unrivalled collection, as well 
as to note in detail the odd contrasts between Ismail's 
gayly flowered walls and the solemn antiquities ranged 
below them. " But here is no space," as Lady Mary 
"Wortley Montagu would have expressed it. And one of 
the curious facts concerning description is that those 
who have with their own eyes seen the statue, for in- 
stance, which is the subject of a writer's pen (and it 
is the same with regard to a landscape, or a country, 
or whatever you please) — such persons sometimes like 
to read an account of it, though the words are not 
needed to bring up the true image of the thing delin- 
eated, whereas those who have never seen the statue — 
that is, the vast majority — are, as a general rule, not in 
the least interested in any description of it, long or 
short, and, indeed, consider all such descriptions a bore. 

At present the one fault of Gizeh is the absence of 
a catalogue. But catalogues are a mysterious subject, 
comprehended only by the elect. 

One day when I was passing the hot hours in the 



174 



shaded rooms of the museum, surrounded by seated 
granite figures with their hands on their knees (the 
coolest companions I know), I heard chattering and 
laughter. These are unusual sounds in those echoing 
halls, where unconsciously everybody whispers, partly 
because of the echo, and partly also, I think, on account 
of the mystic mummy cases which stand on end and 
look at one so queerly with their oblique eyes. Pres- 
ently there came into view ten or twelve Cairo ladies, 
followed by eunuchs, and preceded by a guide. The 
eunuchs were (as eunuchs generally are) hideous, though 
they represented all ages, from a tall lank boy of seven- 
teen to a withered old creature well beyond sixty. The 
Cairo eunuchs are negroes ; one distinguishes them al- 
ways by the extreme care with which they are dressed. 
They wear coats and trousers of black broadcloth made 
in the latest European style, with patent-leather shoes, 
and they are decorated with gold chains, seal rings, and 
scarf-pins ; they have one merit as regards their appear- 
ance — I know of but one — they do look clean. The 
ladies were taking their ease ; the muffling black silk 
outer cloaks, which all Egyptian women of the upper 
class wear when they leave the house, had been thrown 
aside ; the white face veils had been loosened so that 
they dropped below the chin. It was the hareem of the 
Minister for Foreign Affairs ; their carriages were wait- 
ing below. The most modest of men — a missionary, for 
instance, or an entomologist — would, I suppose, have put 
them to flight ; but as the tourist season was over, and 
as it was luncheon-time for Europeans, no one appeared 
but myself, and the ladies strayed hither and thither as 
they chose, occasionally stopping to hear a few words 
of the explanations which the guide (a woman also) 
was vainly trying to give before each important statue. 
With one exception, these Cairo dames were, to say the 
least, extremely plump ; their bare hands were deeply 




THE WOODEN MAN 

Gizeh Museum, near Cairo. — According to the chronological table of Mariette, 

this statue is over 6000 years old. — From a photograph by Brugsch Bey 



177 



dimpled, their cheeks round. They all had the same 
very white complexion without rose tints ; their feat- 
ures were fairly good, though rather thick ; the eyes in 
each case were beautiful — large, dark, lustrous, with 
sweeping lashes. Their figures, under their loose gar- 
ments, looked like feather pillows. They were awk- 
ward in bearing and gait, but this might have been 
owing to the fact that their small plump feet (in white 
open-work cotton stockings) were squeezed into very 
tight French slippers with abnormally high heels, upon 
which it must have been difficult to balance so many 
dimples. The one exception to the rule of billowy 
beauty was a slender, even meagrely formed girl, who 
in America would pass perhaps for seventeen ; proba- 
bly she was three years younger. Her thin, dark, rest- 
less face, with its beautiful inquiring eyes, was several 
times close beside mine as we both inspected the 
golden bracelets and ear-rings, the necklaces and fan, 
of Queen Ahhotpu, our sister in vanity of three thou- 
sand five hundred years ago. I looked more at her than 
I did at the jewels, and she returned my gaze ; we 
might have had a conversation. What would I not 
have given to have been able to talk with her in her 
own tongue ! After a while they all assembled in what 
is called the winter garden, an up-stairs apartment, where 
grass grows over the floor in formal little plots. Chairs 
were brought, and they seated themselves amid this 
aerial verdure to partake of sherbet, which the youngest 
eunuch handed about with a business-like air. While 
they were still here, much relaxed as regards attire and 
attitude, my attention was attracted by the rush through 
the outer room (where I myself was seated) of the four 
older eunuchs. They had been idling about ; they had 
even gone down the stairs, leaving to the youngest of 
their number the task of serving the sherbet; but now 
they all appeared again, and the swiftness with which 
" 12 



178 



they crossed the outer room and dashed into the winter- 
garden created a breeze. They called to their charges 
as they came, and there was a general smoothing down 
of draperies. The eunuchs, however, stood upon no 
ceremony ; they themselves attired the ladies in the 
muffling cloaks, and refastened their veils securely, as a 
nurse dresses children, and with quite as much authority. 
I noticed that the handsomer faces showed no especial 
haste to disappear from view ; but there was no real 
resistance ; there was only a good deal of laughter. 

I dare say that there was more laughter still (under 
the veils) when the cause of all this haste appeared, 
coming slowly up the stairs. It was a small man of 
sixty-five or seventy, one of my own countrymen, at- 
tired in a linen duster and a travel-worn high hat ; his 
silver-haired head was bent over his guide-book, and 
he wore blue spectacles. I don't think he saw any- 
thing but blue antiquities, safely made of stone. 

Hareem carriages (that is, ladies' carriages) in Cairo 
are large, heavily built broughams. The occupants wear 
thin white muslin or white tulle veils tied across the 
face under the eyes, with an upper band of the same 
material across the forehead ; but these veils do not in 
reality hide the features much more closely than do 
the dotted black or white lace veils worn by Europeans. 
The muffling outer draperies, however, completely con- 
ceal the figure, and this makes the marked difference 
between them and their English, French, and Ameri- 
can sisters in the other carriages near at hand. On 
the box of the brougham, with the coachman, the 
eunuch takes his place. To go out without a eunuch 
would be a humiliation for a Cairo wife ; to her view, 
it would seem to say that she is not sufficiently at- 
tractive to require a guardian. The hareem carriage 
of a man of importance has not only its eunuch, but 
also its sais, or running footman ; often two of them. 



179 



These winged creatures precede the carriage ; no mat- 
ter how rapid the pace of the horses, they are always 
in advance, carrying, lightly poised in one hand, high 
in the air, a long lance-like wand. Their gait is the 
most beautiful motion I have ever seen. The Mercury 
of John of Bologna; the younger gods of Olympus — 
will these do for comparisons? One calls the sais 
winged not only because of his speed, but also on ac- 
count of his large white sleeves (in English, angel 
sleeves), which, though lightly caught together behind, 
float out on each side as he runs, like actual wings. 
His costume is rich — a short velvet jacket thickly em- 
broidered with gold ; a red cap with long silken tassel ; 
full white trousers which end at the knee, leaving the 
legs and feet bare ; and a brilliant scarf encircling the 
small waist. These men are Nubians, and are admi- 
rably formed ; often they are very handsome. Natural- 
ly one never sees an old one, and it is said that they 
die young. Their original office was to clear a passage 
for the carriage through the narrow, crowded streets ; 
now that the streets are broader, they are not so fre- 
quently seen, though Egyptians of rank still employ 
them, not only for their hareem carriages, but for their 
own. They are occasionally seen, also, before the 
victoria or the landau of European residents ; but in 
this case their Oriental dress accords ill with the stiff, 
tight Parisian costumes behind them. Now, and then 
one sees them perched on the back seat of an English 
dog-cart, and here they look well ; they always sit side- 
wise, with one hand on the back of the seat, as though 
ready at a moment's notice to spring out and begin 
flying again. 

If the figures of the Cairo ladies are always well 
muffled, one has at least abundant opportunity to ad- 
mire the grace and strength of the women of the work- 
ing classes. When young they have a noble bearing. 



180 



Their usual dress is a long gown of very dark blue 
cotton, a black head veil, and a thick black face veil 
that is kept in its place below the eyes by a gilded 
ornament which looks like an empty spool. Often 
their beautifully shaped slender feet are bare ; but even 
the poorest are decked with anklets, bracelets, and 
necklaces of beads, imitation silver or brass. The 
men of the working classes wear blue gowns also, but 
the blue is of a much lighter hue ; many of them, espe- 
cially the farmers and farm laborers (called fellaheen), 
have wonderfully straight flat backs and broad, strong 
shoulders. Europeans, when walking, appear at a great 
disadvantage beside these loosely robed people ; all 
their movements seem cramped when compared with 
the free, effortless step of the Arab beside them. 

THE BAZAARS 

One spends half one's time in the bazaars, perhaps. 
One admires them and adores them ; but one feels that 
their attraction cannot be made clear to others by 
words. Nor can it be by the camera. There are a 
thousand photographic views of Cairo offered for sale, 
but, with the exception of an attempt at the gateway 
of the Khan Khaleel, not one copy of these labyrinths, 
which is a significant fact. Their charm comes from 
color, and this can be represented by the painter's 
brush alone. But even the painter can render it only 
in bits. From a selfish point of view we might per- 
haps be glad that there is one spot left on this earth 
whose characteristic aspect cannot be reproduced, either 
upon the wall or the pictured page, whose shimmering 
vistas must remain a purely personal memory. We can 
say to those who have in their minds the same fantas- 
tic vision, " Ah, you know !" But we cannot make 
others know. For what is the use of declaring that a 




AN EGYPTIAN WOMAN 
From a photograph by Abdullah Freres, Cairo 



183 



collection of winding lanes, some of them not more 
than three feet broad, opening into and leading out of 
each other, unpaved, dirty, roofed far above, where the 
high stone houses end, with a lattice- work of old mats 
— what is the use of declaring that this maze is one of 
the most delightful places in the world? There is no 
use ; one must see it to believe it. 

We approach the bazaars by the Moosld, a street 
which has lost all its ancient attraction — which is, in 
fact, one of the most commonplace avenues I know. 
But near its end the enchantment begins, and whether 
we enter the flag bazaar, the lemon- colored-slipper ba- 
zaar, the gold-and-silver bazaar, the bazaar of the Sou- 
dan, the bazaar of silks and embroideries, the bazaar of 
Turkish carpets, or the lane of perfumes felicitously 
named by the donkey -boys the smell bazaar, we are 
soon in the condition of children before a magician's 
table. I defy any one to resist it. The most tired 
American business man looks about him with awakened 
interest, the lines of his face relax and turn into the 
wrinkles we associate with laughter, as he sees the 
small, frontless shops, the long-skirted merchants, and 
the sewing, embroidering, cross-legged crowd. The 
best way, indeed, to view the bazaars is to relax — to re- 
lax your ideas of time as well as of pace, and not be 
in a hurry about anything. Accompany some one who 
is buying, but do not buy yourself ; then you can have 
a seat on the divan, and even (as a friend of the pur- 
chaser) one of those wee cups of black coffee which 
the merchant offers, and which, whether you like it or 
not, you take, because it belongs to the scene. Thus 
seated, you can look about at your ease. 

In these days, when every one is rereading the 
Arabian Nights, the learned in Burton's translation, 
the outside public in Lady Burton's, even the most 
unmethodical of writers feels himself, in connection 



184 



with Cairo, forced towards the inevitable allusion to 
Haroun. But once within the precincts of the Khan 
Khaleel, he does not need to have his fancy jogged 
by Burton or any one else ; he thinks of the Arabian 
Nights instinctively, and " it's a poor tale," indeed, to 
quote Mrs. Poyser, if he does not meet the one-eyed 
calendar in the very first booth. But, as has already 
been said, it is useless to describe. All one can do is 
to set down a few impressions. One of the first of 
these is the charming light. The sunshine of Egypt 
has a great radiance, but it has also — and this is espe- 
cially visible when one looks across any breadth of 
landscape — a pleasant quality of softness ; it is a radi- 
ance which is slightly hazy and slightly golden brown, 
being in these respects quite unlike the pellucid white 
light of Greece. The Greeks frown ; even the young- 
est of the handsome men who go about in ballet-like 
white petticoats and the brimless cap, has the ugly little 
perpendicular line between the eyes, produced by a con- 
stant knitting of the brows. Like the Greek, the 
Egyptian also is without protection for his eyes ; the 
dragoman wears a small shawl over the fez, which 
covers the back of the neck and sides of the face, the 
Bedouins have a hood, but the large majority of the 
natives are unprotected. It is said that a Mohamme- 
dan can have no brim to his turban or tarboosh, be- 
cause he must place his bare forehead upon the ground 
when he says his prayers, and this without removing 
his head-gear (which would be irreverent). However 
this may be, he goes about in Egypt with the sun in 
his eyes, though, owing to the softer quality of the 
light, he does not frown as the Greek frowns. For 
those who are not Egyptians, however, the light in 
Cairo sometimes seems too omnipresent; then, for 
refuge, they can go to the bazaars. The sunshine is 
here cut off horizontally by thick walls, and from above 



185 



it is filtered through mats, whose many interstices cause 
a checker of light and shade in an infinite variety of 
unexpected patterns on the ground. This ground is 
watered. Somehow the air is cool ; coming in from the 
bright streets outside is like entering an arbor. The little 
shops resemble cupboards ; their floors are about three 
feet above the street. They have no doors at the back. 
When the merchant wishes to close his establishment, 
he comes out, pulls down the lid, locks it, and goes 
home. A picturesque characteristic is that in many 
cases the wares are simply sold here ; they are also 
made, one by one, upon the spot. You can see the 
brass-workers incising the arabesques of their trays ; 
you can see the armorers making arms, the ribbon- 
makers making ribbons, the jewellers blowing their 
forges, the ivory -carvers bending over their delicate 
task. As soon as each article is finished, it is dusted 
and placed upon the little shelf above, and then the 
apprentice sets to work upon a new one. In addition 
to the light, another thing one notices is the amazing 
way in which the feet are used. In Cairo one soon 
becomes as familiar with feet as one is elsewhere with 
hands ; it is not merely that they are bare ; it is that the 
toes appear to be prehensile, like fingers. In the ba- 
zaars the embroiderers hold their cloth with their toes ; 
the slipper-makers, the flag-cutters, the brass- workers, 
the goldsmiths, employ their second set of fingers al- 
most as much as they employ the first. Both the hands 
and feet of these men are well formed, slender, and del- 
icate, and, by the rules of their religion, they are bathed 
five times each day. 

Mosques are near where they can get water for this 
duty. For the bazaars are not continuous rows of 
shops : one comes not infrequently upon the ornamental 
portal of an old Arabian dwelling-house, upon the for- 
gotten tomb of a sheykh, with its low dome ; one passes 



186 



under stone arches ; often one sees the doorway of a 
mosque. Humble-minded dogs, who look like jackals, 
prowl about. The populace trudges through the nar- 
row lanes, munching sugar-cane whenever it can get it. 
Another favorite food is the lettuce - plant ; but the 
leaves, which we use for salad, the Egyptians throw 
away ; it is the stalk that attracts them. 

Lettuce-stalks are not rich food, but the bazaars of 
the people who eat them convey, on the whole, an im- 
pression of richness ; this is owing to the sumptuous- 
ness of the prayer carpets, the gold embroideries, the 
gleaming silks, the Oriental brass-work with sentences 
from the Koran, the ivory, the ostrich plumes, the little 
silver bottles for kohl, the inlaid daggers, the tur- 
quoises and pearls, and the beautiful gauzes, a few of 
them embroidered with the motto, " I do this work for 
you," and on the reverse side, " And this I do for 
God." To some persons, the far - penetrating mystic 
sweetness from the perfume bazaar adds an element 
also. Here sit the Persian merchants in their delicate 
silken robes; they weigh incense on tiny scales; they 
sort the gold - embossed vials of attar of roses ; their 
taper fingers move about amid whimsically small cabi- 
nets and chests of drawers filled with ambrosial mys- 
teries. There is magic in names ; these merchants are 
doubly interesting because they come from Ispahan ! 
Scanderoun — there is another ; how it rolls off the 
tongue ! We do not wish for exact geographical de- 
scriptions of these places ; that would spoil all. We 
wish to chant, like Kit Marlowe's Tamburlaine (and 
with similar indefiniteness) : 

" Is it not passing brave to be a king, 
And march in triumph through Persepolis?" 

" So will I ride through Samarcanda streets, 
... to Babylon, my lords ; to Babylon !" 



THE NILE — COMING DOWN TO GET WATER 
From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo 



189 



When we leave Cairo we cannot take with us the 
light of these labyrinths ; we cannot take their colors ; 
but one traveller, last May, having found in an antiquity- 
shop an ancient perfume-burner, had the inspiration of 
bargaining with these Persians, seated cross-legged in 
their aromatic niches (said traveller on a white donkey 
outside), for small packages of sandal and aloes wood, 
of myrrh, of frankincense and ambergris, of benzoin, of 
dried rose leaves, and of other Oriental twigs and sticks, 
for the purpose of summing up, later, and in less con- 
genial climes perhaps, the spicy atmosphere, at least, of 
the Cairo bazaars. What would be the effect of breath- 
ing always this fragrant air ? Would it give a richer 
life, would it tinge the cheek with warmer hues ? These 
merchants have complexions like cream-tinted tea-roses; 
their dark eyes are clear, and all their movements grace- 
ful ; they are very tranquil, but not in the least sleepy ; 
they look as if they could take part in subtle arguments, 
and pursue the finest chains of reasoning. Would an 
atmosphere perfumed by these Eastern woods clarify 
and rarefy our denser Occidental minds ? 

THE NILE 

As every one who comes to Cairo goes up the Nile, 
the river is seldom thought of as it appears during its 
course past the Khedive's city. This simple vision of it 
is overshadowed by memories of Abydos, of Karnak and 
Thebes, and Philse — the great temples on its banks 
which have impressed one so profoundly. Perhaps 
they have over-impressed ; possibly the tension of con- 
tinuous gazing has been kept up too long. In this case 
the victim, with his head in his hands, is ready to echo 
the (extremely true) exclamation of Dudley Warner, 
" There is nothing on earth so tiresome as a row of 
stone gods standing to receive the offerings of a Tur- 



190 



veydrop of a king !" This was the mental condition of 
a lady who last winter, on a Nile boat, suddenly began 
to sew. " I have spent nine long days on this boat, 
staring from morning till night. One cannot stare at a 
river forever, even if it is the Nile ! Give me my 
thimble." 

One is not obliged to leave Cairo in order to see ex- 
amples of the smaller silhouettes of the great river — 
the shadoofs or irrigating machines, the rows of palm- 
trees, the lateen yards clustered near a port, and always 
and forever the women coming down the bank to 
get water from the yellow tide. These processions of 
women are the most characteristic " Nile scene with 
figures " of the present day. I am not sure but that 
one of their jars, or the smaller gray kulleh (which by 
evaporation keeps the water deliciously cool), would 
evoke " Egypt " more quickly in the minds of most of 
us than even the portrait of Cleopatra herself on the 
back wall at Denderah. If one is staying in Cairo after 
the tremendous voyage is over, one wanders to the 
banks every now and then to gaze anew at the broad, 
monotonous stream. It comes from the last remaining 
unknown territory of our star, and this very year has 
seen that space grow smaller. Round about it stand to- 
day five or six of the civilized nations, who have formed 
a battue, and are driving in the game. The old river 
had a secret, one of the three secrets of the world ; but 
though the North and South Poles still remain un- 
mapped, the annual rise of its waters will be strange no 
longer when Lado is a second Birmingham. How will 
it seem when we can telephone to Sennaar (perhaps to 
that ambassador beloved by readers of the Easy Chair), 
or when there is early closing in Darf ur ? 

At Cairo, when one rides or drives, one almost al- 
ways crosses the Nile ; but Cairo herself does not 
cross. Her more closely built quarters do not even come 



i 2 

I ^ 

[ Q 

5 O 




193 



down to the shore. The Nile and Cairo are two dis- 
tinct personalities ; they are not one and indivisible, as 
the Nile and Thebes are one, the Nile and Philae. 

The river at Cairo has a dull appearance. Its only 
beauty comes from the towering snow-white sails of the 
dahabeeyahs and trading craft that crowd the stream. 
It is true that these have a great charm. 

DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE 

In the old quarters this is Arabian. The beauty lies 
largely in the latticed balconies called mouchrabiyehs, 
which overhang the narrow roadways. These bay-win- 
dows sometimes stud the facades thickly, now large, 
now small, but always a fretwork of delicate wood- 
carving. Often from the bay projects a second and 
smaller oriel, also latticed. This is the place for the 
water jar, the current of air through the lattices keep- 
ing the water cool. An Arabian house has no windows 
on the ground-floor in its outer wall save small air-holes 
placed very high, but above are these mouchrabiyehs, 
which are made of bits of cedar elaborately carved in 
geometrical designs. The small size of the pieces is 
due to the climate, the heats of the long summer 
would warp larger surfaces of wood ; but the delicacy 
and intricacy of the carving are a work of supereroga- ' 
tion due to Arabian taste. From the mouchrabiyehs 
the inmates can see the passers-by, but the passers-by 
cannot see the inmates, an essential condition for the 
carefully guarded privacy of the family. 

There is in Cairo a personage unconnected with the 
government who, among the native population, is al- 
most as important as the Khedive himself ; this is the 
Sheykh Ahmed Mohammed es Sadat, the only descend- 
ant in the direct line of the Prophet Mohammed now 
living. He has the right to many native titles, though 



194 



he does not put them on his quiet little visiting-card, 
which bears only his name and a mysterious monogram 
in Arabic. By Europeans he is called simply the Sheykh 
(the word means chief) es Sadat. The ancestral dwell- 
ing of the sheykh shares in its master's distinction. It 
is pointed out, and, when permission can be obtained, 
visited. It is a typical specimen of Saracenic domestic 
architecture, and has always remained in the possession 
of the family, for whom it was first erected eight hun- 
dred years ago. There are in Cairo other Arabian 
houses as beautiful and as ancient as this. By diplo- 
matic (and mercenary) arts I gained admittance to 
three, one of which has walls studded with jasper and 
mother-of-pearl. But these exquisite chambers, being- 
half ruined, fill the mind with wicked temptations. 
One longs to lay hands upon the tiles, to bargain for an 
inscription or for a small oriel with the furtive occu- 
pants, who have no right to sell, the real owners being 
Arabs of ancient race, who would refuse to strip their 
walls, however crumbling, for unbelievers from con- 
temptible, paltry lands beyond the sea. The house of 
the Sheykh es Sadat may not leave one tranquil, for it 
is tantalizingly picturesque, but at least it does not in- 
spire larceny ; the presence of many servitors prevents 
that. To reach this residence one leaves (gladly) the 
Boulevard Mohammed Ali, and takes a narrower thor- 
oughfare, the Street of the Sycamores, which bends 
towards the south. This lane winds as it goes, following 
the course of the old canal, the Khaleeg, and one passes 
many of the public fountains, or sebeels, which are al- 
most as numerous in Cairo as the mosques. A foun- 
tain in Arab signification does not mean a jet of water, 
but simply a place where water can be obtained. The 
sebeels are beautiful structures, often having marble 
walls, a dome, and the richest kind of ornament. The 
water is either dipped with a cup from the basin with- 




^4^4f^>i^ 



MODCHRABIYEHS IN THE OLD QUARTER 



197 



in, or drawn from the brass mouth-pieces placed out- 
side. Nothing could represent better, I think, the dif- 
ference between the East and the West than one of 
these elaborate fountains, covering, in a crowded quar- 
ter, the space which might have been occupied by two 
or three small houses, adorned with carved stone-work, 
slabs of porphyry, and long inscriptions in gilt, and an 
iron town pump, its erect slenderness taking up no 
space at all, and its excellent if unbeautiful handle 
standing straight out against the sky. 

A narrow lane, leaving the Street of the Sycamores, 
burrows still more deeply into the heart of the quarter, 
and at last brings us to a porch which juts into the 
roadway, masking, as is usual in Cairo, the real door- 
way, which is within. Upon entering, one finds him- 
self in a quadrilateral court, which is open to the sky. 
An old sycamore shades several latticed windows, among 
them one which contains three of the smaller oriels ; 
this portion of the second story rests upon an antique 
marble column. On one side of the column is the low, 
rough archway leading to the porch ; on the other, the 
high decorated marble entrance of the reception-hall. 
For in Arabian houses all the magnificence is kept for 
the interior. In the streets one sees only plain stone 
walls, which are often hidden under a stucco of mud, 
more or less peeled off, so that they look half ruined. 
In the old quarters of Cairo, among the private houses, 
one obtains, indeed (unless one has an invitation to en- 
ter), a general impression of ruin. At the back of the 
sheykh's court is the stairway to the hareem, the en- 
trance masked by a gayly colored curtain. Across an- 
other side extends the private mosque, only half hidden 
by an ornamented grating. One can see the interior 
and the high pulpit decked with the green flag of the 
Prophet. The walls which encircle the court, and which 
are embellished here and there with Arabic inscrip- 



198 



tions, are of differing heights, as they form parts of 
separate structures which have been erected at various 
periods through the eight centuries. The place is, in 
fact, an agglomeration of houses, and some of the older 
chambers are crumbling and roofless. The central court 
(which shows its age only in a picturesque trace or two) 
is adorned with at least twenty beautiful mouchrabi- 
yehs, some large, some small, and no two on the same 
level. A charm of Saracenic architecture is that you 
can always make discoveries, nothing is stereotyped ; 
of a dozen delicate rosettes standing side by side under 
a balcony, no two are carved in the same design. 

In a room which stretches back to the garden — and 
which at the time of our visit was empty, save for a 
row of antique silver-gilt coffee-pots standing on the 
marble floor — there is a long, low window, like a band 
in the wall, formed of small carved lattices. The hand 
of Abbey only, I think, could reproduce the beauty of 
this casement; but instead of the charming seventeenth- 
century English girls whom he would wish to place 
there, realism would demand the hideous eunuchs, with 
their gold chains and scarf-pins ; or else (and this 
would be better) the dignified old Arab in a white tur- 
ban who sat cross-legged in the court with his long 
pipe, his half-closed eyes expressing his disdain for the 
American visitors. The courtesy of the master of the 
house, however, made up for his servitor's scorn. The 
sheykh is a tall man, somewhat too portly, with amiable 
dark eyes, and a gleam of humor in his face. One scans 
his features with interest, as if to catch some reflection 
of the Prophet; but the rays from an ancestor who 
walked the earth twelve hundred years ago are presum- 
ably faint. There is nothing modern in the sheykh's 
attire ; his handsome flowing gown is of silk ; he wears 
a turban, slippers, and an India shawl wound round his 
waist like a sash. When the air is cool, he shrouds him- 




INTERIOR COURT OF A NATIVE HOUSE, CAIRO 
From a photograph by Abdullah Freres, Cairo 



201 



self in a large outer cloak of fine dark blue cloth, which 
is lined with white fur. Sometimes Sign or Ahmed 
carries in his hand the Mohammedan rosary. This 
string of beads appears to be used as Madame de Stael 
used her " little stick," as the English called it (in Italy, 
more poetically, they named it " a twig of laurel "). 
Corrinne must always have this beside her plate at din- 
ner to play with before she conversed, or rather de- 
claimed. Her maid, in confidence, explained that it was 
necessary to madame " to stimulate her ideas." One 
often sees the rosary on duty when two Turks are con- 
versing. After a while, their subjects failing them, they 
fall into silence. Then each draws out his string from 
a pocket, and they play with their beads for a moment 
or two, until, inspiration reviving, they begin talking 
again. One hopes that poor Ahmed Mohammed has 
not been driven to his string too often as mental sup- 
port during dumb visits from Anglo - Saxon tourists, 
who can do nothing but stare at him. The sheykh's 
reception-hall is forty feet wide and sixty feet long. 
The ceiling, which has the Saracenic pendentives in the 
corners and under the beams, is of wood, gilded and 
painted and carved in the characteristic style which one 
vainly tries to describe. Travellers have likened it to an 
India shawl ; to me it seemed to approach more nearly 
the wrong side, of a Persian scarf, which shows the 
many-hued silken ravellings. The effect, as a whole, 
though extraordinarily rich, is yet subdued. The walls 
are encrusted with old blue tiles which mount to the 
top. At one end of the room there is a beautiful wall- 
fountain. And now comes the other side of the story. 
To enjoy all this beauty, you must not look down ; for, 
alas ! the marble floor is tightly covered with a modern 
French carpet; chairs and tables of the most ordinary 
modern designs have taken the place of the old divans ; 
and these tables, furthermore, are ornamented with hid- 



202 



eous bouquets of artificial flowers under glass. Finally, 
the tiles which have fallen from the lower part of the 
walls have not been replaced by others ; a coarse fres- 
co has been substituted. What would not one give to 
see the sheyhk, who is himself a purely Oriental figure, 
seated in this splendid hall of his fathers as it once 
was, on one of the now superseded divans, the marbles 
of his floor uncovered save for his discarded Turkish 
rugs, the fountain sending forth its rose-water spray, 
perfume burning in the silver receivers, and no encum- 
bering furniture save piles of brocaded cushions and a 
jar or two on the gilded shelf. 

But we shall never see this. In 1889, 180,594 trav- 
ellers crossed Egypt by way of the Suez Canal. In 
this item of statistics we have the reason. 

THE PYRAMIDS 

For those who have fair eyesight the pyramids of 
Gizeh are a part of Cairo ; their gray tiangles against 
the sky are visible from so many points that they 
soon become as familiar as a neighboring hill. In ad- 
dition, they have been pictured to us so constantly in 
paintings, drawings, engravings, and photographs that 
one views them at first more with recognition than sur- 
prise. " There they are ! How natural !" And this long- 
familiarity makes one shrink from arranging phrases 
about them. 

One thing, however, can be said : when we are in ac- 
tual fact under them, when we can touch them, our 
easy acquaintance vanishes, and we suddenly perceive 
that we have never comprehended them in the least. 
The strange geometrical walls effect a spiritual change 
in us; they free us from ourselves for a moment, and 
unconsciously we look back across the past to which 
they belong, and into the future, of which they are a 



203 



part much more than we are, as unmindful of our own 
little cares and occupations, and even our own small 
lives, as though we had never been chained to them. 
It is but a fleeting second, perhaps, that this men- 
tal emancipation lasts, but it is a second worth 
having ! 

One drives to the pyramids in an hour, over a mac- 
adamized road. The perennial stories about trouble 
with the Bedouins belong to the past. Soldiers and po- 
licemen guard the sands as they guard the Cairo streets, 
and the proffer of false antiquities is not more pressing, 
perhaps, than the demands of the beggars in town. 
These three pyramids of Gizeh are those we think of 
before we have visited Egypt. But there are others ; 
including the small ones and those which are ruined, 
seventy have been counted in twenty-five miles from 
Cairo to Meydoom, and pyramids are to be seen in other 
parts of Egypt. The stories concerning Gizeh and the 
travellers who, from Herodotus down, have visited the 
colossal tombs, are innumerable. I do not know why 
the one about Lepsius should seem to me amusing. 
This learned man and his party, who were sent to Egypt 
by King Frederick William of Prussia in 1842, celebra- 
ted that king's birthday by singing in chorus the Prus- 
sian national anthem in the centre of Cheops. The 
Bedouins in attendance reported outside that they had 
" prayed all together a loud general prayer." 

In connection with the pyramids, the English may 
be said to have devoted themselves principally to meas- 
urements. The genius of the French, which is ever 
that of expression, has invented the one great sentence 
about them. So far, the Americans have done nothing 
by which to distinguish themselves; but their time will 
come, perhaps. One fancies that Edison will have some- 
thing to do with it. In the meanwhile modernity is 
already there. There is a hotel at the foot of Cheops, 



204 



and one hardly knows whether to laugh or to cry when 
one sees lawn-tennis going on there daily. 

But no matter what lies before us — even if they 
should pave the desert, and establish an English tram- 
way (or a line of American horse -cars) to the Sphinx 
— these mighty masses cannot be belittled. There is 
something in the pyramids which overawes our boasted 
civilization. In their presence this seems trivial ; it 
seems an impertinence. 

THE COPTS 

The most interesting of the Coptic churches are at 
Old Cairo, a mother suburb, where the first city was 
founded by the conquering Arabian army. Here, en- 
sconced amid hill -like mounds of rubbish, concealed 
behind mud walls, hidden at the end of blind alleys, 
one finds the temples of these native Christians, who 
are the descendants of the converts of St. Mark. The 
exterior wails have no importance. In truth, one seldom 
sees them, for the churches are within other structures. 
Some of them form part of old fortified convents ; one 
is reached by passing through the dwelling-rooms of 
an inhabited house ; another is up-stairs in a Roman 
tower. You arrive somehow at a door. When this is 
opened, you find yourself in a church whose general as- 
pect is rough, and whose aisles are adorned with dust 
and sometimes with dirt. But these temples have 
their treasures. Chief among them are the high choir 
screens of dark wood, elaborately carved in panels, and 
decorated with morsels of ivory which have grown yel- 
low from age. The sculpture is not open-work ; it does 
not go through the panel ; it is done in relief. The de- 
signs are Saracenic, but these geometrical patterns are 
interrupted every now and then by Christian emblems 
and by the Coptic cross. The style of this wood-carving 




A DONKEY RIDE 



is unique ; no other sculpture resembles it. If it does 
not quite attain beauty, it is at least very odd and rich. 
There are also carved doors representing Scriptural 
subjects, marble pulpits, singular bronze candlesticks, 
brass censers adorned with little bells, silver -gilt gos- 
pel - cases, embroidered vestments, silver marriage - dia- 
dems, ostrich eggs in metal cases, and old Byzantine 
paintings, often representing St. George, for St. George 
is the patron saint of the Copts. 

These people esteem themselves to be the true de- 
scendants of the ancient Egyptians, as distinguished 
from the conquering race of Arabians who have now 
overrun their land. It is a comical idea, but they call 



206 



upon us to note their close resemblance to the mum- 
mies. Early converts to Christianity, they have re- 
mained faithful to their belief " amid the Mohamme- 
dan population all about them. It must be mentioned, 
however, that they had been pronounced heretics by 
the Council of Chalcedon before the Arabian conquest ; 
for they had refused to worship the human nature of 
Christ, revering His divine nature alone. They are the 
guardians of the Christian legends of Egypt. In a 
crypt under one of their churches they show two 
niches. One, they say, was the sleeping-place of Joseph, 
and the other of the Virgin and Child, during the flight 
into Egypt. Near Heliopolis is an ancient tree, under 
whose branches the Holy Family are supposed to have 
rested when the sunshine was too hot for further trav- 
elling. 

There are between four and five hundred thousand 
Copts in Egypt. It may be mentioned here that the 
Christians of the country, including all branches of 
the faith, number to-day about six hundred thousand, 
or one -tenth of the population. The Copts are the 
book-keepers and scribes ; they are also the jewellers 
and embroiderers. Their ancient tongue has fallen 
into disuse, and is practically a dead language. They 
now use Arabic, like all the rest of the nation; but 
the speech survives in their church service, a part of 
which is still given in the old tongue, though it is 
said that even the priests themselves do not always un- 
derstand what they are saying, having merely learned 
the sentences by heart, so that they can repeat them as 
a matter of form. Copts have been converted to Prot- 
estantism during these latter days by the American 
missionaries. 

They are not, in appearance, an attractive people. 
Their convents and churches, at least in Cairo and its 
neighborhood, are so hidden away, inaccessible, and 



207 



dirty that they are but slightly appreciated by the 
majority of travellers, who spend far more of their time 
among the mosques *of Mohammed. But both the 
people and their ancient language are full of interest 
from an historical point of view. They form a field for 
research which will give some day rich results. A 
little has been done, and well done ; but much still re- 
mains hidden. It has yet to be dug out by the learned. 
Then it must be translated by the middle-men into those 
agreeable little histories which, with agreeable little 
tunes, agreeable little stories, and agreeable little pict- 
ures, are the delight of the many. 

KIEF 

The large modern cafes of Cairo are imitations of 
the cafes of Paris. They are uninteresting, save that 
one sees under their awnings, or at the little tables 
within, the stambouline in all its glory and ugliness — 
that is, the heavy black frock-coat with stiff collar, 
which, with the fez or tarboosh, is the appointed cos- 
tume for all persons who are employed by the govern- 
ment. The stranger, observing the large number of 
men of all ages in this attire, is led to the conclusion 
that the government must employ many thousands of 
persons in Cairo alone ; but probably there is a per- 
mitted usage in connection with it, like that mysterious 
legend — " By especial appointment to the Queen " — 
which one sees so often in England inscribed over the 
doors of little shops in provincial High Streets, where 
the inns have names which to Americans are as fan- 
tastic as anything in " Tartarin ;" the " White Horse ;" 
the " Crab and Lobster ;" the " Three Choughs ;" and 
the " Five Alls." 

The native cafes have much more local color than 
the homes of the stambouline. Outside are rows of 



high wooden settees, upon which the patrons of the 
establishment sit cross-legged, their slippers left on the 
ground below. One often sees a row of Arabs squat- 
ting here, holding no communication with each other, 
hearing nothing, seeing nothing, enjoying for the mo- 
ment an absolute rest. This period of daily repose, 
called kief, is a necessity for Egyptians. It has its 
overweight, its excess, in the smoking of hasheesh, 
which is one of the curses of the land ; but thousands 
of the people who never touch hasheesh would under- 
stand as little how to get through their day without 
this interregnum as without eating ; in fact, eating is 
less important to them. 

The Egyptian often takes his rest at the cafe. When 
the American sees Achmet and Ibrahim, who have at- 
tended to some of his errands for infinitesimal wages — 
men whose sole possessions are the old cotton gowns 
on their backs — when he sees them squatted in broad 
daylight at the cafe, smoking the long pipes and slowly 
drinking the Mocha coffee, it appears to him an inex- 
plicable idleness, an incurable self-indulgence. It is 
idleness, no doubt, but associations should not be 
mixed with the subject. To the American the little 
cup of after-dinner coffee seems a luxury. He does 
not always stop to remember that Achmet's coffee is, 
very possibly, all the dinner he is to have ; that it has 
been preceded by nothing since daylight but a small 
piece of Egyptian bread, and that it will be followed 
by nothing before bedtime but a mouthful of beans 
or a lettuce-stalk. The daily rest is by no means taken 
always at the cafe. Egyptians also take it at the baths, 
where, after the final douche, they spend half an hour 
in motionless ease. For those who have not the paras 
for the cafe or the bath, the mosques offer their shaded 
courts. When there is no time to seek another place,, 
the men take their rest wherever they are. One often 



211 



sees them lying asleep, or apparently asleep, in their 
booths at the bazaars. The very beggars draw their 
rags round them, cover their faces, and lie down close 
to a wall in the crowded lanes. 

At the cafes, during another stage of the rest, games 
are played, the favorites being dominos, backgammon, 
and chess. Sometimes a story-teller entertains the cir- 
cle. He narrates the deeds of Antar and legends of 
adventure ; he also tells stories from the Bible, such as 
the tale of the flood, or of Daniel in the den of lions. 
Sometimes he recites, in Arabic, the poems of Omar 
Khayyam. 

" I sent my soul through the invisible, 
Some letter of that after-life to spell ; 
And by-and-by my soul returned to me, 

And answered, ' I myself am heaven and hell !' " 

This verse of the Persian poet might be taken as the 
motto of kief ; for if the heaven or hell of each per- 
son is simply the condition of his own mind, then if 
he is able every day to reduce his mind, even for a half- 
hour only, to a happy tranquillity which has forgotten 
all its troubles, has he not gained that amount of para- 
dise ? 




II 






f^ 



ji/i .>* .a. 



>S-J' yj> 



jJW^JIw-J "I love the 
Arabian lan- 
guage for 
three reasons : because I am an Arab myself; because the 
Koran is in Arabic ; because Arabic is the language of 
Paradise." This hadith, or saying, of Mohammed might 
be put upon the banner of the old university of Cairo, 
El Azhar; that is, the Splendid. El Azhar was founded 
in the tenth century, when Cairo itself was hardly more 
than a name. In its unmoved attachment to the beliefs 
of its founders, to their old enthusiasms, their methods 
and hates, El Azhar has opposed an inflexible front to 
the advance of European ideas, sending out year after 
year its hundreds of pupils to all parts of Egypt and 
to Nubia, to the Soudan and to Morocco, to Turkey, 
Arabia, and Syria, to India and Ceylon, and to the 
borders of Persia, believing that so long as it could 
keep the education of the young in its grasp the reign 
of the Prophet was secure. It is to-day the most im- 
portant Mohammedan college in the world ; for though 
it has no longer the twenty thousand students who 
crowded its courts in the thirteenth and fourteenth cen- 
turies, there is still an annual attendance of from seven 
to ten thousand; by some authorities the number is 
given as twelve thousand. The twelve thousand have 
no academic groves ; they have not even one tree. There 



213 



is nothing sequestered about El Azhar ; it is near the 
bazaars in the old part of the town, where the houses 
are crowded together like wasps' nests. One sees noth- 
ing of it as one approaches save the minarets above, 
and in the narrow, crowded lane an outer portal. Here 
the visitor must show his permit and put on the mosque- 
shoes, for El Azhar was once a mosque, and is now 
mosque and university combined. After the shoes are 
on he steps over the low bar, and finds himself within 
the porch, which is a marvel as it stands, with its fret- 
work, carved stones, faded reds, and those old plaques 
of inscription which excite one's curiosity so desper- 
ately, and which no dragoman can ever translate, no 
matter in how many languages he can complacently 
ask, "You satisfi?" One soon learns something of the 
older tongue ; hieroglyphics are not difficult ; any one 
with eyes can discover after a while that the A of the 
ancient Egyptians is, often, a bird who bears a strong 
resemblance to a pigeon ; that their L is a lion ; and 
that the name of the builder of the Great Pyramid, for 
instance, is represented by a design which looks like 
two freshly hatched chickens, a football, and a horned 
lizard (speaking, of course, respectfully of them all). 
But one can never find out the meaning of the tanta- 
lizing characters, so many thousand years nearer our 
own day, which confront us, surrounded by arabesques, 
over old Cairo gateways, across the fronts of the street 
fountains, or inscribed in faded gilt on the crumbling 
walls of mosques. It is probable that they are Kufic, 
and one would hardly demand, I suppose, that an Eng- 
lish guide should read black-letter? But who can be 
reasonable in the land of Aladdin's Lamp ? 

The porch leads to the large central court, which is 
open to the sky, the breeze, and the birds ; and this last 
is not merely a possibility, for birds of all kinds are nu- 
merous in Egypt, and unmolested. On the pavement of 



214 



this court, squatting in groups, are hundreds of the tur- 
baned students, some studying aloud, some reading 
aloud (it is always aloud), some listening to a professor 
(who also squats), some eating their frugal meals, some 
mending their clothes, and some merely chatting. These 
groups are so many and so close together that often the 
visitor can only make the circuit of the place on its out- 
skirts ; he cannot cross. There is generally a carrier of 
drinking-water making his rounds amid the serried 
ranks. " For whoever is thirsty, here is water from 
God," he chants. One is almost afraid to put down the 
melodious phrase, for the street cries of Cairo have be- 
come as trite as the Ranz des Vaches of Switzerland. 
Still, some of them are so imaginative and quaint that 
they should be rescued from triteness and made classic. 
Here is one which is chanted by the seller of vegeta- 
bles — the best beans, it should be explained, come 
from Embebeh, beyond Boulak — "Help, O Embebeh, 
help ! The beans of Embebeh are better than almonds. 
Oh-h, how sweet are the little sons of the river !" (This 
last phrase makes poetical allusion to the soaking in 
Nile water, which is required before the beans can be 
cooked.) Certain famous baked beans nearer home also 
require preliminary soaking. Let us imagine a huck- 
ster calling out in Boston streets, as he pursues his way : 
" Help, O Beverly, help ! The beans of Beverly are 
better than peaches. Oh-h, how sweet are the little 
sons of Cochituate !" 

The central court of the Splendid is surrounded by 
colonnades, whose walls are now undergoing repairs ; 
but the propping beams do not appear to disturb either 
the pupils or teachers. On the east side is the sanctuary, 
which is also a school-room, but a covered one ; it is a 
large, low-ceilinged hall, covering an area of thirty-six 
hundred square yards ; by day its light is dusky ; by 
nio-ht it is illuminated bv twelve hundred twinkling lit- 




PORCH OP EL AZHAR 

From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo 



217 



tie lamps suspended from the ceiling by bronze chains. 
The roof is supported by three hundred and eighty 
antique columns of marble and granite placed in irreg- 
ular ranges ; there are so many of these pillars that to 
be among them is like standing in a grove. The pave- 
ment is smoothly covered with straw matting; and here 
also are assembled throngs of pupils — some studying, 
some reciting, some asleep. I paid many visits to El 
Azhar, moving about quietly with my venerable little 
dragoman, whom I had selected for an unusual accom- 
plishment — silence. One day I came upon an arithme- 
tic class; the professor, a thin, ardent-eyed man of forty, 
was squatted upon a beautiful Turkish rug at the base 
of a granite column ; his class of boys, numbering 
thirty, were squatted in a half-circle facing him, their 
slates on the matting before them. The professor had 
a small black-board which he had propped up so that 
all could see it, and there on its surface I saw inscribed 
that enemy of my own youth, a sum in fractions — three- 
eighths of seven-ninths of twelve -twentieths of ten- 
thirty-fifths, and so on ; evidently the terrible thing is 
as savage as ever ! The professor grew excited ; he 
harangued his pupils ; he did the sum over and over; 
rubbing out and rewriting his ferocious conundrum 
with a bit of chalk. Slender Arabian hands tried the 
sum furtively on the little slates ; but no one had ac- 
complished the task when, afraid of being remarked, I 
at last turned away. 

The outfit of a well -provided student at El Azhar 
consists of a rug, a low desk like a small portfolio- 
easel, a Koran, a slate, an inkstand, and an earthen 
dish. Instruction is free, and boys are admitted at the 
early age of eight years. The majority of the pupils 
do not remain after their twelfth or fourteenth year ; a 
large number, however, pursue their studies much longer, 
and old students return from time to time to obtain fur- 



218 



ther instruction, so that it is not uncommon to see a 
gray-bearded pupil studying by the side of a child who 
might be his grandson. To me it seemed that two- 
thirds of the students were men between thirty and 
forty years of age ; but this may have been because one 
noticed them more, as collegians so mature are an unu- 
sual sight for American eyes. 

All the pupils bow as they study, with a motion like 
that of the bowing porcelain mandarins. The custom is 
attributed to the necessity for bending the head whenever 
the name of Allah is encountered ; as the first text-book 
is always the Koran, children have found it easier to bow 
at regular intervals with an even motion than to watch 
for the numerous repetitions of the name. The habit 
thus formed in childhood remains, and one often sees 
old merchants in the bazaars reading for their own en- 
tertainment, and bowing to and fro as they read. I 
have even beheld young men, smartly dressed in full 
European attire, who, lost in the interest of a newspaper, 
had forgotten themselves for the moment, and were 
bending to and fro unconsciously at the door of a 
French cafe. A nation that enjoys the rocking-chair 
ought to understand this. Some of the students of El 
Azhar have rooms outside, but many of them possess 
no other shelter than these two courts, where they sleep 
upon their rugs spread over the matting or pavement. 
Food can be brought in at pleasure, but those two Oriental 
time-consumers, pipes and coffee, are not allowed within 
the precincts. In one of the porches barbers are estab- 
lished ; there is generally a row of students undergoing 
the process of head-shaving. The fierce, fanatical blind 
pupils, so often described in the past by travellers, are 
no longer there ; the porter can show only their empty 
school-room. Blindness is prevalent in Egypt; no 
doubt the sunshine of the long summer has something 
to do with it, but another cause is the neglected condi- 



219 



tion of young children. There is no belief so firmly 
established in the minds of Egyptian mothers as the 
superstition that the child who is clean and well-dressed 
will inevitably attract the dreaded evil-eye, and suffer 
ever afterwards from the effects of the malign glance. I 
have seen women who evidently belonged to the upper 
ranks of the middle class — women dressed in silk, with 
gold ornaments, and a following servant — who were ac- 
companied by a poor baby of two or three years of age, 
so dirty, so squalid and neglected, that any one unac- 
quainted with the country would have supposed it to 
be the child of a beggar. 

In addition to the bowing motion, instruction at El 
Azhar is aided by a mnemonic system, the rules of 
grammar, and other lessons also, being given in rhyme. 
I suppose our public schools are above devices of this 
sort ; but there are some of us among the elders who 
still fly mentally, when the subject of English history 
comes up, to that useful poem beginning " First, 
William the Norman ;" and I have heard of the rules 
for the use of " shall" and "will" being properly remem- 
bered only when set to the tune of " Scotland's burn- 
ing !" Surely any tune — even "Man the Life-boat" — 
would become valuable if it could clear up the bogs of 
the subjunctive. 

It must be mentioned that El Azhar did not invent 
its mnemonics ; it has inherited them from the past. 
All the mediaeval universities made use of the system. 

The central court is surrounded on three sides by 
chambers, one of which belongs to each country and to 
each Egyptian province represented at the college. 
These sombre apartments are filled with oddly-shaped 
wardrobes, which are assigned to the students for their 
clothes. There is a legend connected with these rooms: 
At dusk a man whose heart is pure is sometimes per- 
mitted to see the elves who come at that hour to play 



220 



games in the inner court under the columns ; here they 
run races, they chase each other over the matting, they 
climb the pillars, and indulge in a thousand antics. 
The little creatures are said to live in the wardrobes, 
and each student occasionally places a few flowers with- 
in, to avert from himself the danger that comes from 
their too great love of tricks. There are other inhabi- 
tants of these rooms who also indulge in tricks. These 
are little animals which I took to be ferrets ; twice I 
had a glimpse of a disappearing tail, like a dark flash, 
as I passed over a threshold. Probably they are kept 
as mouse-hunters, for pets are not allowed ; if they were, 
it would be entertaining to note those which would be 
brought hither by homesick pupils from the Somali 
coast, or Yemen. 

In beginning his education the first task for a boy 
is to commit the Koran to memory. As he learns a 
portion he is taught to read and to write those para- 
graphs ; in this way he goes through the entire vol- 
ume. Grammar comes next; at El Azhar the word 
includes logic, rhetoric, composition, versification, elo- 
cution, and other branches. Then follows law, secu- 
lar and religious. But the law, like the logic, like all 
the instruction, is founded exclusively upon the Koran. 
As there is no inquiry into anything new, the precepts 
have naturally taken a fixed shape ; the rules were long 
ago established, and they have never been altered; the 
student of 1890 receives the information given to the 
student of 1490, and no more. But it is this very fact 
which makes El Azhar interesting to the looker-on; 
it is a living relic, a survival in the nineteenth century 
of the university of the fourteenth and fifteenth. It is 
true that when we think of those great colleges of the 
past, the picture which rises in the mind is not one of 
turbaned, seated figures in flowing robes ; it is rather 
of aggressively agile youths, with small braggadocio 



223 



caps perched on their long locks, their slender waists 
outlined in the shortest of jackets, and their long- legs 
incased in the tightest of party-colored hose. But this 
is because the great painters of the past have given im- 
mortality to these astonishing scholars of their own 
lands by putting them upon their canvases. They con- 
fined themselves to their own lands too, unfortunately 
for us ; they did not set sail, with their colors and 
brushes, upon Homer's "misty deep." It would be in- 
teresting to see what Pinturicchio would have made of 
El Azhar ; or how Gentile da Fabriano would have 
copied the crowded outer court. 

The president of El Azhar occupies, in native estima- 
tion, a position of the highest authority. Napoleon, 
recognizing this power, requested the aid of his influ- 
ence in inducing Cairo to surrender in 1798. The 
sheykh complied ; and a month later the wonderful 
Frenchman, in full Oriental costume, visited the univer- 
sity in state, and listened to a recitation from the 
Koran. 

Now that modern schools have been established by 
the government in addition to the excellent and ener- 
getic mission seminaries maintained by the English, the 
Americans, the Germans, and the French, one wonders 
whether this venerable Arabian college will modify its 
tenets or shrink to a shadow and disappear. There are 
hopeful souls who prophesy the former; but I do not 
agree with them. Let us aid the American schools by all 
the means in our power. But as for El Azhar, may it 
fade (as fade it must) with its ancient legends draped 
untouched about it. 

All who visit Cairo see the Assiout ware — pottery 
made of red and black earth, and turned on a wheel ; it 
comes from Assiout, two hundred and thirty miles up 
the Nile, and the simple forms of the vases and jugs, 
the rose-water stoups and narrow-necked perfume-throw- 



224 



ers, are often very graceful. Assiout ware is offered 
for sale in the streets ; but the itinerant venders are 
sent out by a dealer in the bazaars, and the fatality 
which makes it happen that the vender has two black 
stoups and one red jug when you wish for one black 
stoup and two red jugs sent us to headquarters. But 
the crowded booth did not contain our heart's desire, 
and as we still lingered, making ourselves, I dare say, 
too pressing for the Oriental ease of the proprietor, it 
was at last suggested that Mustapha might perhaps go 
to the store-room for more — ? (the interrogation-point 
meaning backsheesh). Seizing the opportunity, we asked 
permission to accompany the messenger. No one ob- 
jecting — as the natives consider all strangers more or 
less mad — we were soon following our guide through a 
dusky passageway behind the shop, the darkness lit by 
the gleam of his white teeth as he turned, every now 
and then, to give us an encouraging smile and a wink of 
his one eye, over his shoulder. At length — still in the 
dark — we arrived at a stairway, and, ascending, found 
ourselves in a second - story court, which was roofed 
over with matting. This court was surrounded by cham- 
bers fitted with rough, sliding fronts : almost all of the 
fronts were at the moment thrown up, as a window is 
thrown up and held by its pulleys. In one of these 
rooms we found Assiout ware in all its varieties ; but we 
made a slow choice. We were evidently in a lodging- 
house of native Cairo; all the chambers save this one 
store-room appeared to be occupied as bachelors' apart- 
ments. The two rooms nearest us belonged to El Azhar 
students, so Mustapha said : he could speak no Eng- 
lish, but he imparted the information in Arabic to our 
dragoman. Seeing that we were more interested in 
the general scene than in his red jugs, Mustapha left 
the Assiout ware to its fate, and, lighting a ciga- 
rette, seated himself on the railing with a disengaged 



225 



air, as much as to say : " Two more mad women ! But 
it's nothing to me." One of the students was evidently 
an ascetic ; his room contained piles of hooks and pam- 
phlets, and almost nothing else ; his one rug was spread 
out close to the front in order to get the light, and 
placed upon it we saw his open inkstand, his pens, and 
a page of freshly copied manuscript. When we asked 
where he was, Mustapha replied that he had gone down 
to the fountain to wash himself, so that he could say 
his prayers. The second chamber belonged to a stu- 
dent of another disposition; this extravagant young 
man had three rugs; clothes hung from pegs upon his 
walls, and he possessed an extra pair of lemon-colored 
slippers ; in addition we saw cups and saucers upon a 
shelf. Only two books were visible, and these were 
put away in a corner ; instead of books he had flow- 
ers; the whole place was adorned with them ; pots con- 
taining plants in full bloom were standing on the floor 
round the walls of his largely exposed abode, and were 
also drawn up in two rows in the passageway outside, 
where he himself, sitting on a mat, was sewing. His 
blossoms were so gay that involuntarily we smiled. 
Whereupon he smiled too, and gave us a salam. Op- 
posite the rooms of the students there was a large 
chamber, almost entirely filled with white bales, like 
small cotton bales ; in a niche between these high piles, 
an old man, kneeling at the threshold, was washing 
something in a large earthen-ware tub of a pink tint. His 
body was bare from the waist upward, and, as he bent 
over his task, his short chest, with all the ribs clearly 
visible, his long brown back with the vertebrae of the 
spine standing out, and his lean, seesawing arms, looked 
skeleton-like, while his head, supported on a small wiz- 
ened throat, was adorned with such an emormous bob- 
bing turban, dark green in hue, that it resembled vege- 
tation of some sort — a colossal cabbage. Directly 
15 



226 



behind him, also on the threshold, squatted a large gray 
baboon, whose countenance expressed a fixed misanthro- 
py. Every now and then this creature, who was se- 
cured by a long, loose cord, ascended slowly to the top 
of the bales and came down on the other side, facing 
his master. He then looked deeply into the tub for 
several minutes, touched the water carefully with his 
small black hand, withdrew it, and inspected the palm, 
and then returned gravely, and by the same roundabout 
way over the bales, to resume his position at the door- 
sill, looking as if he could not understand the folly of 
such unnecessary and silly toil. 

In another chamber a large, very black negro, dressed 
in pure white, was seated upon the floor, with his feet 
stretched out in front of him, his hands placed stiffly on 
his knees, his eyes staring straight before him. He was 
motionless ; he seemed hardly to breathe. 

" What is he doing ?" I said to the dragoman. 

" He ? Oh, he berry good man ; he pray." 

In a chamber next to the negro two grave old Arabs 
were playing chess. They were perched upon one of 
those Cairo settees which look like square chicken- 
coops. One often sees these seats in the streets, placed 
for messengers and porters, and for some time I took 
them for actual chicken-coops, and wondered why they 
were always empty. Chickens might well have inhab- 
ited the one used by the chess-players, for the central 
court upon which all these chambers opened was cov- 
ered with a layer of rubbish and dirt several inches 
thick, which contained many of their feathers. It was 
upon this same day that we made our search for the 
Khan of Kait Bey. No dragoman knows where it is. 
The best way, indeed, to see the old quarters is to se- 
lect from a map the name of a street as remote as pos- 
sible from the usual thoroughfares beloved by these tas- 
selled guides, and then demand to be conducted thither. 




BEFORE THE SACRED NICHE 

From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo 



We did this in connection with the Khan of Kait Bey. 
But when we had achieved the distinction of finding 
it, we discovered that it was impossible to see it. The 
winding street is so narrow, and so constantly crowded 
with two opposed streams of traffic, that your donkey 
cannot pause to give you a chance to inspect the portion 
which is close to your eyes, and there is no spot where 
you can get a view in perspective of the whole. So you 
pass up the lane, turn, and come down again ; and, if 
conscientious, you repeat the process, obtaining for all 
your pains only a confused impression of horizontal 
plaques and panels, with ruined walls tottering above 
them, and squalid shops below. There is a fine arched 
gateway adorned with pendentives ; that, on account of 
its size, you can see ; it leads into the khan proper, 
where were once the chambers for the travelling mer- 
chants and the stalls for their beasts ; but all this is 
now a ruin. One of the best authorities on Saracenic 
art has announced that this khan is adorned with more 
varieties of exquisite arabesques than any single build- 
ing in Cairo. This may be true. But to appreciate the 
truth of the statement one needs wings or a ladder. 
The word ladder opens the subject of the two ways of 
looking at architecture — in detail or as a whole. The 
natural power of the eye has more to do with this than 
is acknowledged. If one can distinctly see, without ef- 
fort and aid, a whole facade at a glance, with the gen- 
eral effect of its proportions, the style of its ornament, 
the lights and shadows, the outline of the top against 
the sky, one is more interested in this than in the small 
traceries, for instance, over one especial window. There 
are those of us who remember the English cathedrals 
by their great towers rising in the gray air, with the 
birds flying about them. There are others who, never 
having clearly seen this vision — for no opera-glass can 
give the whole — recall, for their share of the pleasure, 



230 



the details of the carvings over the porches, or of the 
old tombs within. It is simply the far-sighted and the 
near-sighted view. Another authority, a master who 
has had many disciples, has (of late years, at least) de- 
voted himself principally to the near-sighted view. In 
his maroon-colored Tracts on Venice he has given us a 
minute account of the features of the small faces of 
the capitals of the columns of the Doge's palace (all 
these ofs express the minuteness of it) ; but when we 
stand on the pavement below the palace — and naturally 
we cannot stand in mid-air — we find that it is impossi- 
ble to follow him : I speak of the old capitals, some of 
which are still untouched. The solution lies in the 
ladder. And Ruskin, as regards his later writings, may 
be called the ladder critic. The poet Longfellow, arriv- 
ing in Verona during one of his Italian journeys, learned 
that Ruskin was also there, and not finding him at the 
hotel, went out in search of his friend. After a while 
he came upon him at the Tombs of the Scaligers. Here 
high in the air, at the top of a long ladder, with a servant 
keeping watch below, was a small figure. It was Rus- 
kin, who, nose to nose with them, was making a careful 
drawing of some of the delicate terminal ornaments of 
those splendid Gothic structures. One does not object to 
the careful drawings any more than to the descriptions 
of the little faces at Venice. They are good in their way. 
But one wishes to put upon record the suggestion that 
architectural beauty as viewed from a ladder, inch by 
inch, is not the only aspect of that beauty ; nor is it, 
for a large number of us, the most important aspect. 
A man who is somewhat deaf, if talking about a sym- 
phony, will naturally dwell upon the strains which he 
has heard — that is, the louder portions ; but he ought 
not therefore to assume that the softer notes are insig- 
nificant. 



231 



THE DERVISHES 



On the 31st of January, 1890, we took part in a 
horse-race. It was a long race of great violence, and 
the horses engaged in it were disgracefully thin and 
weak. " Very Mohammedan — that," some one com- 
ments. The race was Mohammedan from one point of 
view, for it was connected with the dervishes, Moham- 
medans of fanatical creed. The dervishes, however, re- 
mained in their monasteries — with their fanaticism; the 
race was made by Christians, who, crowded into rattling 
carriages, flew in a body from the square of Sultan 
Hassan through the long, winding lanes that lead tow- 
ards Old Cairo at a speed which endangered every- 
body's life, with wheels grating against each other, 
coachmen standing up and yelling like demons, whip- 
lashes curling round the ribs of the wretched, ill-fed, 
galloping horses, and natives darting into their honses on 
each side to save themselves from death, as the furious 
procession, in clouds of dust, rushed by. The cause of 
this sudden madness is found in the fact that the two 
best-known orders of these Mohammedan monks (one 
calls them monks for want of a better name ; they have 
some resemblance to monks, and some to Freemasons) 
go through their rites once a week only, and upon the 
same afternoon ; by making this desperate haste it is 
possible to see both services ; and as travellers, for the 
most part, make but a short stay in Cairo, they find 
themselves taking part, nolens volens, in this frantic 
progress, led by their ambitious dragomans, who appear 
to enjoy it. The service of the Dancing Dervishes 
takes place in their mosque, which is near the square of 
Sultan Hassan. Here they have a small circular hall ; 
round this arena, and elevated slightly above it, is an 
aisle where spectators are allowed to stand ; over the 
aisle is the gallery. This January day brought a crowd 



232 



of visitors who filled the aisle completely. Presently a 
dervish made the circuit of the empty arena, warning, by 
a solemn gesture, those who had seated or half-seated 
themselves upon the balustrade that the attitude was 
not allowed. As soon as he had passed, some of the 
warned took their places again. Naturally, these were 
spectators of the gentler sex. I am even afraid that 
they were pilgrims from the land where the gentler sex 
is accustomed from its earliest years to a profound 
deference. Two of these pretty pilgrims transgressed 
in this way four times, and at last the dervish came and 
stood before them. They remained seated, returning 
his gaze with amiable tranquillity. What he thought I 
do not know — this lean Egyptian in his old brown cloak 
and conical hat. I fancied, however, that it had some- 
thing to do with the great advantages of the Mohamme- 
dan system regarding the seclusion of women. He did 
not conquer. 

At length began the music. The band of the der- 
vishes is placed in one of the galleries ; we could see the 
performers squatting on their rugs, the instruments being 
flutes or long pipes, and small drums like tambourines 
without the rattles. Egyptian music has a marked time, 
but no melody ; no matter how good an ear one has, it 
is impossible to catch and resing its notes, even though 
one hears them daily. Pierre Loti writes : " The strains 
of the little flutes of Africa charm me more than the 
most perfect orchestral harmonies of other lands." If 
by this he means that the flutes recall to his memory 
the magic scenes of Oriental life, that is one thing; but 
if he means that he really loves the sounds for them- 
selves, I am afraid we must conclude that this prince of 
verbal expression has not an ear for music (which is 
only fair ; a man cannot have everything). The band 
of the dervishes sends forth a high wail, accompanied 
by a rumble. Neither, however, is distressingly loud. 



I s 

3 z 




235 



Meanwhile the dervishes have entered, and, muffled in 
their cloaks, are standing, a silent band, round the edge 
of the arena ; their sheykh — a very old man, much bent, 
but with a noble countenance — takes his place upon the 
sacred rug, and receives with dignity their obeisances. 
All remain motionless for a while. Then the sheykh 
rises, heads the procession, and, with a very slow step, 
they all move round the arena, bowing towards the sa- 
cred carpet as they pass it. This opening ceremony 
concluded, the sheykh again takes his seat, and the der- 
vishes, divesting themselves of their cloaks, step one by 
one into the open space, where, after a prayer, each be- 
gins whirling slowly, with closed eyes. They are all at- 
tired in long, full white skirts, whose edges have weights 
attached to them ; as the speed of the music increases, 
their whirl becomes more rapid, but it remains always 
even; though their eyes are closed, they never touch 
each other. From the description alone, it is difficult 
to imagine that this rite (for such it is) is solemn. But 
looked at with the actual eyes, it seemed to me an im- 
pressive ceremony ; the absorbed appearance of the par- 
ticipants, their unconsciousness of all outward things, 
the earnestness of the aspiration visible on their faces — 
all these were striking. The zikr, as this species of re- 
ligious effort is named, is an attempt to reach a state of 
ecstasy (hallucination, we should call it), during which 
the human being, having forgotten the existence of its 
body, becomes for the moment spirit only, and can then 
mingle with the spirit world. The Dancing Dervishes 
endeavor to bring on this trance by the physical dizzi- 
ness which is produced by whirling ; the Howling Der- 
vishes try to effect the same by swinging their heads 
rapidly up and down, and from side to side, with a 
constant shout of " Allah !" " Allah !" The latter soon 
reach a state of temporary frenzy. For this reason the 
dancers are more interesting ; their ecstasy, being silent,, 



236 



seems more earnest. The religion of the Hindoos has 
a similar idea in another form — namely, that the highest 
happiness is a mingling with God, and an utter uncon- 
sciousness of one's, humanity. Christian hermits, in 
retiring from the world, have sought, as far as possible, 
the same mental condition ; but for a lifetime, not, like 
the dervishes, for an hour. These enthusiasts marry, 
if they please ; many of them are artisans, tradesmen, 
and farm laborers, and only go at certain times to the 
monasteries to take part in the zikrs. There are many 
different orders, and several other kinds of zikr besides 
the two most commonly seen by travellers. • 

Travellers see also the Mohammedan prayers. These 
prayers, with alms -giving, fasting during the month 
Ramadan, and the pilgrimage to Mecca, are the impor- 
tant religious duties of all Muslims. The excellent new 
hotel, the Continental, where we had our quarters, a 
hotel whose quiet and comfort are a blessing to Cairo, 
overlooked a house which was undergoing alteration ; 
every afternoon at a certain hour a plasterer came from 
his work within, and, standing in a corner under our 
windows, divested himself of his soiled outer gown ; 
then, going to a wall-faucet, he turned on the water, 
and rapidly but carefully washed his face, his hands 
and arms, his feet, and his legs as far as his knees, ac- 
cording to Mohammed's rule ; this done, he took down 
from a tree a clean board which he kept there for the 
purpose, and, placing it upon the ground, he kneeled 
down upon it, with his face towards Mecca, and went 
through his worship, many times touching the ground 
with his forehead in token of self-humiliation. His de- 
votions occupied five or six minutes. As soon as they 
were over, the board was quickly replaced in the tree, 
the soiled gown put on again, and the man hurried back 
to his work with an alertness which showed that he was 
no idler. On the Nile, at the appointed hour, our pilot 




fc 







A MECCA DOOR 



gave the wheel to a subordinate, spread out his prayer- 
carpet on the deck, and said his prayers with as much 
indifference to the eyes watching him as though they 
did not exist. In the bazaars the merchants pray in 
their shops ; the public cook prays in the street beside 
his little furnace ; on the shores of the river at sunset 
the kneeling figures outlined against the sky are one 
of the pictures which all travellers remember. The of- 
ficial pilgrimage to Mecca takes place each year, the de- 



23£ 



parture and return of the pilgrim train being celebrated 
with great pomp; the most ardent desire of every Moham- 
medan is to make this journey before he dies. When a 
returning Cairo pilgrim reaches home, it is a common 
custom to decorate his doorway with figures, painted in 
brilliant hues, representing his supposed adventures. 
The designs, which are very primitive in outline, usual- 
ly show the train of camels, the escort of soldiers, won- 
derful wild beasts in fighting attitudes, nondescript 
birds and trees, and garlands of flowers. One comes 
upon these Mecca doorways very frequently in the old 
quarters. Sometimes the gay tints show that the jour- 
ney was a recent one; often the faded outlines speak 
of the zeal of an ancestor. 

THE REIGNING DYNASTY 

While in the city of the Khedive, if one has a wish 
for the benediction of a far-stretching view, he must 
go to the Citadel. The prospect from this hill has 
been described many times. One sees all Cairo, with 
her minarets ; the vivid green of the plain, with the. Nile 
winding through it; the desert meeting the verdure and 
stretching back to the red hills ; lastly, the pyramids, 
beginning with those of Gizeh, near at hand, and end- 
ing, far in the distance, with the hazy outlines of those 
of Abouseer and Sakkarah. The Citadel was built by 
Saladin in the twelfth century. Saladin's palace, which 
formed part of it, was demolished in 1824 to make 
room for the modern mosque, whose large dome and 
attenuated minarets are now the last objects which fade 
away when the traveller leaves Cairo behind him. 
This rich Mohammedan temple was the work of Me- 
hemet Ali, the founder of the present dynasty. It is 
not beautiful, in spite of its alabaster, but Mehemet 
himself would probably admire it, could he return to 



241 



earth (the mosque was not completed until after his 
death), as he had to the full that bad taste in archi- 
tecture and art which, for unexplained reasons, so often 
accompanies a new birth of progress in an old country. 
Mehemet was born in Roumelia ; he entered the Turk- 
ish army, and after attaining the rank of colonel he 
was sent to Egypt. Here he soon usurped all power, 
and had it not been for the intervention of Russia and 
France, and later of England and Austria, it is proba- 
ble that he would have succeeded in freeing himself 
and the country whose leadership he had grasped from 
the domination of Turkey. Every one has heard some- 
thing of the terrible massacre of the Memlooks by his 
order, in this Citadel, in 1811. The Memlooks were op- 
posed to all progress, and Mehemet was bent upon 
progress. Freed from their power, this ferocious liber- 
ator built canals ; he did his best to improve agriculture ; 
he established a printing-office and founded schools; 
he sent three hundred boys to Europe to be educated 
as civil engineers, as machinists, as printers, as naval 
officers, and as physicians ; his idea was that, upon 
their return, they could instruct others. When the 
first class came back, he filled his public schools by the 
simple method of force. The translators of the French 
text-books which had been selected for the use of the 
schools were taken from the ranks of the returned stu- 
dents. A text-book was given to each, and all were kept 
closely imprisoned in the Citadel a period of four 
months, until they had completed their task. Mehemet 
had a dream of an Arabian kingdom in Egypt which 
should in time rival the European nations without joining 
them. It is this dream which makes him interesting. 
He was the first modern. A Turk by birth, and remain- 
ing a Turk as regards his private life, he had great ideas. 
Undoubtedly he possessed genius of a high order. 
As to his private life, one comes across a trace of it 
16 



242 



at Choubra. This was Mehemet's summer residence, 
and the place remains much as it was during his life- 
time. The road to Choubra, which was until recently 
the favorite drive of the Cairenes, is now deserted. The 
palace stands on the banks of the Nile, three miles from 
town, and its gardens, which cover nine acres, are beau- 
tiful even in their present neglected condition ; in the 
spring the fragrance from the mass of blossoms is in- 
toxicatingly sweet. But the wonder of Choubra is a 
richly decorated garden-house, containing, in a marble 
basin, a lake which is large enough for skiffs. Here 
Mehemet often spent his evenings. Upon these occa- 
sions the whole place was brilliantly lighted, and the 
hareem disported itself in little boats on the fairy-like 
pool, and in strolling up and down the marble colon- 
nades, unveiled (as Mehemet was the only man present), 
and in their richest attire. The marbles have grown 
dim, the fountains are choked, the colonnades are dusty, 
and the lake has a melancholy air. But even in its 
decay Choubra presents to the man of fancy — a few 
such men still exist — a picture of Oriental scenes which 
he has all his life imagined, perhaps, but whose actual 
traces he no more expected to see with his own eyes in 
1890 than to behold the silken sails of Cleopatra furled 
among Cook's steamers on the Nile. Mehemet's last 
years were spent at Choubra, and here he died, in 1849, 
at the age of eighty - one. As he had forced from 
Turkey a firman assigning the throne to his own fami- 
ly, he was succeeded by one of his sons. 

ISMAIL 

In 1863 (after the short reign of Ibrahim, five years 
of Abbas, and eight of Said), Ismail, Mehemet's grand- 
son, ascended the throne. He had received his educa- 
tion in Paris. 



"3 2 






03 S- 
J* O 




245 



Much has been written about this man. The open- 
ing, in 1869, of the Suez Canal turned the eyes of the 
entire civilized world upon Egypt. The writers swooped 
down upon the ancient country in a flock, and the 
canal, the land, and its ruler were described again and 
again. The ruler was remarkable. Ismail was short 
(one speaks of him in the past tense, although he is not 
dead), with very broad shoulders ; his hands were sin- 
gularly thick ; his ears also were thick, and oddly placed ; 
his feet were small, and he always wore finically fine 
French shoes. There was nothing of the Arab in his 
face, and little of the Turk. One of his eyelids had a 
natural droop, and vexed diplomatists have left it upon 
record that he had the power of causing the other to 
droop also, thus making it possible for him to study 
the faces of his antagonists at his leisure, he, meanwhile, 
presenting to them in return a blind mask. The mask, 
however, was amiable ; it was adorned almost con- 
stantly with a smile. The man must have had marked 
powers of fascination. At the present day, when some 
of the secrets of his reign are known — though by no 
means all — it is easy to paint him in the darkest colors ; 
but during the time of his power his great schemes 
dazzled the world, and people liked him — it is impossi- 
ble to doubt the testimony of so many pens ; European 
and American visitors always left his presence pleased. 

There are in Cairo black stories of cruelty connected 
with his name. These for the most part are unwritten ; 
they are told in the native cafes and in the bazaars. 
It does not appear that he loved cruelty for its own 
sake, as some of the Roman emperors loved it ; but if 
any one rebelled against his power or his pleasure, that 
person was sacrificed without scruple. In some cases it 
took the form of a disappearance in the night, without 
a sound or a trace left behind. This is the sort of 
thing we associate with the old despotic ages. But 1869 



246 



is not a remote date, and at that time the present Em- 
peror of Austria, the late Emperor Frederick (then Crown- 
Prince of Prussia), the Empress Eugenie, Prince Oscar 
of Sweden, Prince Louis of Hesse, the Princess of the 
Netherlands, the Duke and Duchess of Aosta, and other 
distinguished Europeans, were the guests of this enig- 
matic host, eating his sumptuous dinners and attending 
his magnificent balls. The festivities in connection 
with the opening of the canal are said to have cost Ismail 
twenty-one millions of dollars. The sum seems large ; 
but it included the furnishing of palaces, lavish hos- 
pitality to an army of guests besides the sovereigns and 
their suites, and an opera to order — namely, Verdi's 
A'ida, which was given with great brilliancy in Cairo, 
in an opera-house erected for the occasion. Ismail, 
like Mehemet, had his splendid dream. He, too, wished 
to free Egypt from the power of Turkey ; but, unlike his 
grandfather, he wished to take her bodily into the cir- 
cle of the civilized nations, not as a rival, but as an 
ally and friend. An Egyptian kingdom, under his rule, 
was to extend from the Mediterranean to the equator ; 
from the Red Sea westward beyond Darfur. His bold 
ambition ended in disaster. His railways, telegraphs, 
schools, harbors, and postal-service, together with his 
personal extravagance, brought Egypt to the verge of 
bankruptcy. All Europe now had a vital interest in 
the Suez Canal, and the powers therefore united in a 
demand that the Sultan should stop the career of his 
audacious Egyptian Viceroy. The Viceroy might per- 
haps have resisted the Porte ; he could not resist the 
united powers. In 1879 he was deposed, and his son 
Tufik appointed in his place. Ismail left Egypt. For 
several years he travelled, residing for a time in Naples ; 
at present he is living in a villa near Constantinople. 
There is a rumor in Cairo that he is more of a prisoner 
there than he supposes. But this may be only one of 




THE khediye. From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo 



249 



the legends that are always attached to Turkish affairs. 
His dream has come true in one respect at least : Egypt 
has indeed joined the circle of the European nations, 
but not in the manner which Ismail intended ; she is 
only a bondwoman — if the pun can be permitted. 

THE HAUNTED PALACE 

The Gezireh road is to - day the favorite afternoon 
drive of the Cairenes. It is a broad avenue, raised 
above the plain, and overarched by trees throughout its 
course. At many points it commands an uninterrupted 
view of the pyramids. Two miles from town the Ge- 
zireh Palace rises on the right, surrounded by gardens, 
which, unlike those of Choubra, are carefully tended. 
It was built by Ismail. Of all these Cairo palaces it 
must be explained that they have none of the charac- 
teristics of castles or strongholds ; they are merely 
lightly built residences, designed for a climate which 
has ten months of summer. The central hall and grand 
staircase of Gezireh are superb ; alabaster, onyx, and 
malachite adorn like jewels the beautiful marbles, which 
came from Carrara. The drawing-rooms and audience- 
chambers have a splendid spaciousness : the state apart- 
ments of many a royal palace in Europe sink into in- 
significance in this respect when compared with them. 
Much of the furniture is rich, but again (as in the old 
house of the Sheykh es Sadat) one finds it difficult to 
forgive the tawdry French carpets and curtains, when 
the bazaars close at hand could have contributed 
fabrics of so much greater beauty. But Ismail's taste 
was French — that is, the lowest shade of French — as 
French is still the taste of modern Egypt among the 
upper classes. It remains to be seen whether the Eng- 
lish occupation will change this. During the festivities 
at the time of the opening of the canal, Ismail's royal 



250 



guests were entertained at Gezireh. On the upper 
floor are the rooms which were occupied by the Em- 
press Eugenie, the walls and ceilings covered with thick 
satin, tufted like the back of an arm-chair, its tint the 
shade of blue which is most becoming to a blond 
complexion — Ismail's compliment to his beautiful guest. 
During these days there were state dinners and balls 
at Gezireh, with banks of orchids, myriads of wax- 
lights, and orchestras playing strains from La Belle 
Helene and La Grande Duchesse. During one of 
these balls the Emperor of Austria made a progress 
through the rooms with Ismail, band after band taking 
up the Austrian national anthem as the imperial guest 
entered. The vision of the stately, grave Franz Josef 
advancing through these glittering halls by the side of 
the waddling little hippopotamus of the Nile, to the 
martial notes of that fine hymn (which we have appro- 
priated for our churches under another name, and 
without saying " By your leave"), is one of the sinister 
apparitions with which this rococo palace, a palace half 
splendid, half shabby, is haunted. 

In the garden there is a kiosk whose proportions 
charm the eye. The guide-books inform us that this 
ornamentation is of cast-iron ; that it is an imitation of 
the Alhambra; that it is " considered the finest modern 
Arabian building in the world " — all of which is against 
it. Nevertheless, viewed from any point across the gar- 
dens, its outlines are exquisite. Within there are more 
festal chambers, and a gilded dining-room, which was 
the scene of the suppers (they were often orgies) that 
were given by Ismail upon the occasion of his private 
masked balls. At some distance from the palace, be- 
hind a screen of trees, are the apartments reserved for 
the hareem. This smaller palace has no beauty, unless 
one includes its enchanting little garden ; such attrac- 
tion as it has comes from the light it sheds upon the 



253 



daily life of Eastern women. Occidental travellers are 
always curious about the hareem. The word means sim- 
ply the ladies, or women, of the family, and the term is 
made to include also the rooms which they occupy, as 
our word "school" might mean the building or the pupils 
within it. At Gezireh the hareem, save that its appoint- 
ments are more costly, is much like those caravansaries 
which abound at our inland summer resorts. There are 
long rows of small chambers opening from each side of 
narrow halls, with a few sitting-rooms, which were held 
in common. The carpets, curtains, and such articles of 
furniture as still remain are all flowery, glaring, and in 
the worst possible modern taste, save that they do not 
exhibit those horrible hues, surely the most hideous 
with which this world has been cursed — the so-called 
solferinos and magentas. Besides their private garden, 
the women and children of the hareem had for their en- 
tertainment a small menagerie, an aviery, and a confec- 
tionery establishment, where fresh bonbons were made 
for them every day, especially the sugared rose leaves 
so dear to the Oriental heart. The chief of Ismail's 
four wives had a passion for jewels. She possessed 
rubies and diamonds of unusual size, and so many pre- 
cious stones of all kinds that her satin dresses were em- 
broidered with them. She had her private band of fe- 
male musicians, who played for her, when she wished 
for music, upon the violin, the flute, the zither, and the 
mandolin. The princesses of the royal house, Ismail's 
wives and his sisters-in-law, could not bring themselves 
to admire the Empress of the French. They were lost 
in wonder over what they called her " pinched stiffness." 
It is true that the uncorseted forms of Oriental beauties 
have nothing in common with the rigid back and martial 
elbows of modern attire. Dimples, polished limbs, dark, 
long-lashed eyes, and an indolent step are the ideals of 
the hareem. 



254 



The legends of these jewelled sultanas, of the masked 
balls, of the long train of royal visitors, of the orchids, 
the orchestras, and the wax-lights, are followed at Ge- 
zireh by a tale of murder which is singularly ghastly. 
Ismail's Minister of Finance was his foster-brother 
Sadyk, with whom he had lived upon terms of closest 
intimacy all his life. The two were often together ; fre- 
quently they drove out to Gezireh to spend the night. 
One afternoon in 1878 Ismail's carriage stopped at the 
doorway of the palace in Cairo occupied by his minis- 
ter. Sadyk came out. " Get in," Ismail was heard to 
say. " We will go to Gezireh. There are business mat- 
ters about which I must talk with you." The two men 
went away together. Sadyk never came back. When 
the carriage reached Gezireh, Ismail gave orders that it 
should stop at the palace, instead of going on to the 
kiosk, where they generally alighted. He himself led 
the way within, crossing the reception-room to the small 
private salon which overlooks the Nile. Here he seat- 
ed himself upon a sofa, drawing up his feet in the 
Oriental fashion, which was not his usual custom. Sadyk 
was about to follow his example, when he found him- 
self seized suddenly from behind. The doors were now 
locked from the outside, leaving within only the two 
foster-brothers and the man who had seized Sadyk. 
This was a Nubian named Ishak, a creature celebrated 
for his strength. He now proceeded to murder Sadyk 
after a fashion of his own country, a process of break- 
ing the bones of the chest and neck in a manner which 
leaves on the skin no sign. Sadyk fought for his life ; 
he dragged the Nubian over the white velvet carpet, 
and finallly bit off two of his fingers. But he was not 
a young man, and in the end he was conquered. Dur- 
ing this struggle Ismail remained motionless on the 
sofa, with his feet drawn up and his arms folded. A 
steamer lay at anchor outside, and during the night 



255 



Sadyk's body was placed on board ; at dawn the boat 
started up the river. At the same hour Ismail drove 
back to Cairo, where, in the course of the morning, it 
was officially announced that the Minister of Finance, 
having been detected in colossal peculations, had been 
banished to the White Nile, and was already on his way 
thither. Sadyk's body rests somewhere at the bottom 
of the river. But Ismail's little drama of banishment 
and the steamer were set at naught when, after he had 
left Cairo, Ishak the Nubian returned, with his mutilat- 
ed hand and his story. Such is the tale as it is told 
in the bazaars. Ismail's motive in murdering a man he 
liked (he was incapable of true affection for any one) is 
found in the fact that he could place upon the shoulders 
of the missing minister the worst of the financial irreg- 
ularities which were trying the patience of the European 
powers. It did him no good. He was deposed the 
next year. 

During the spring of 1890 Gezireh awoke to new 
life for a time. A French company had purchased the 
place, with the intention of opening it as an Egyptian 
Monte Carlo. But Khedive Tufik, who has prohibited 
gambling throughout his domain, forbade the execution 
of this plan. So the tarnished silks remain where they 
were, and the faded gilded ceilings have not been re- 
newed. When we made our last visit, during the heats 
of early summer, the blossoms were as beautiful as ever, 
and the ghosts were all there — we met them on the 
marble stairs : the European princes, led by poor Euge- 
nie ; the sultanas, with their jewels and their band ; Is- 
mail, with his drooping eyelids ; and Sadyk, followed 
by the Nubian. 

TUFIK 

The present Khedive (or Viceroy) is thirty - eight 
years of age. Well proportioned, with fine dark eyes, 



256 



he may be called a handsome man ; but his face is made 
heavy by its expression of settled melancholy. It is 
said in Cairo that he has never been known to laugh. 
But this must apply to his public life only, for he is much 
attached to his family — to his wife and his four chil- 
dren ; in this respect he lives strictly in the European 
manner, never having had but this one wife. He is a 
devoted father. Determined that the education of his 
sons should not be neglected as his own education was 
neglected by Ismail, he had for them, at an early age, 
an accomplished English tutor. Later he sent them to 
Geneva, Switzerland ; they are now in Vienna. Tulik's 
chief interest, if one may judge by his acts, is in edu- 
cation. In this direction his strongest efforts have been 
made ; he has improved the public schools of Egypt, 
and established new ones ; he has given all the support 
possible to that greatest of modern innovations in a 
Mohammedan country, the education of women. With 
all this, he is a devout Mohammedan ; he is not a fa- 
natic ; but he may be called, I think, a Mohammedan 
Puritan. He receives his many European and Ameri- 
can visitors with courtesy. But they do not talk about 
him as they talked about Ismail ; he excites no curiosity. 
This is partly owing to his position, his opinions and 
actions having naturally small importance while an Eng- 
lish army is taking charge of his realm ; but it is also 
owing, in a measure, to the character of the man him- 
self. One often sees him driving. On Sunday after- 
noons his carriage in semi -state leads the procession 
along the Gezireh Avenue. First appear the outriders, 
six mounted soldiers ; four brilliantly dressed saises 
follow, rushing along with their wands high in the air ; 
then comes the open carriage, with the dark-eyed, mel- 
ancholy Khedive on the back seat, returning mechani- 
cally the many salutations offered by strangers and by 
his own people. Behind his carriage are four more of 



257 



the flying runners ; then the remainder of the mounted 
escort, two and two. At a little distance follows the 
brougham of the Vice-reine ; according to Oriental eti- 
quette, she never appears in public beside her husband. 
Her brougham is preceded and followed by saises, but 
there is no mounted escort. The Vice-reine is pretty, 
intelligent, and accomplished ; in addition, she is brave. 
Several years ago, when the cholera was raging in Cairo, 
and the Khedive, almost alone among the upper classes, 
remained there in order to do what he could for the 
suffering people, his wife also refused to flee. She 
stayed in the plague-stricken town until the pestilence 
had disappeared, exerting her influence to persuade the 
frightened women of the lower classes to follow her 
example regarding sanitary precautions. Tufik is ac- 
cused of being always undecided ; he was not undecid- 
ed upon this occasion at least. It is probable that some 
of his moments of indecision have been caused by real 
hesitations. And this brings us to Arabi. 

Arabi (he is probably indifferent to the musical sound 
of his name) was the leader of the military revolt which 
broke out in Egypt in 1881 — a revolt with which all the 
world is familiar, because it was followed by the bom- 
bardment of Alexandria by the English fleet. Arabi 
had studied at El Azhar ; he knew the Koran by heart. 
To the native population he seemed a wonderful orator ; 
he excited their enthusiasm ; he roused their courage ; 
he almost made them patriotic. The story of Arabi is 
interesting ; there were many intrigues mixed with the 
revolt, and a dramatic element throughout. But these 
slight impressions — the idle notes merely of one winter 
— are not the place for serious history. Nor is the page 
completed so that it can be described as a whole. Egypt 
at this moment is the scene of history in the actual 
process of making, if the term may be so used — making 
day by day and hour by hour. Arabi has been called the 
IV 



258 



modern Masaniello. The watchword of his revolt was, 
" ^&ypt f° r the Egyptians " ; and there is always some- 
thing touching in this cry when the invaded country is 
weak and the incoming power is strong. But it may 
be answered that the Egyptians at present are incapa- 
ble of governing themselves ; that the country, if left 
to its own devices, would revert to anarchy in a month, 
and to famine, desolation, and barbarism in five years. 
Americans are not concerned with these questions of 
the Eastern world. But if a similar cry had been suc- 
cessfully raised about two hundred years ago on another 
coast — "America for the Americans " — would the West- 
ern continent have profited thereby ? Doubtless the 
original Americans — those of the red skins — raised it as 
loudly as they could. But there was not much listen- 
ing. The comparison is stretched, for the poor Egyp- 
tian fellah is at least not a savage ; but there is a grain 
of resemblance large enough to call for reflection, when 
the question of occupation and improvement of a half- 
civilized land elsewhere is under discussion. The Eng- 
lish put down the revolt, and sent Arabi to Ceylon, a 
small Napoleon at St. Helena. The rebel colonel and his 
fellow-exiles are at present enjoying those spicy breezes 
which are associated in our minds with foreign missions 
and a whole congregation singing (and dragging them 
fearfully) the celebrated verses. Arabi has complained 
of the climate in spite of the perfumes, and it is said 
that he is to be transferred to some other point in the 
ocean ; there are, indeed, many of them well adapted for 
the purpose. The English newspapers of to-day are 
dotted with the word " shadowed," which signifies, ap- 
parently, that certain persons in Ireland are followed so 
closely by a policeman that the official might be the 
shadow. Possibly the melancholy Khedive is shadowed 
by the memory of the exile of Ceylon. For Tufik did 
not cast his lot with Arabi. He turned towards the 




AN EGYPTIAN DANCING-GIRL 



261 



English. To use the word again, though with another 
signification, though ruler still, he has but a shadowy 
power. 

THE ARAB MUSEUM 

Near the city gate named the Help of God, on the 
northeastern border of Cairo, is the old mosque El 
Hakim. Save its outer walls, which enclose, like the 
mosques of Touloun and Amer, a large open square, 
there is not much left of it ; but within this square, 
housed in a temporary building, one finds the collec- 
tion of Saracenic antiquities which is called the Arab 
Museum. 

This museum is interesting, and it ought to be beau- 
tiful. But somehow it is not. The barrack-like walls, 
sparsely ornamented with relics from the mosques, the 
straight aisles and glass show-cases, are not inspiring ; 
the fragments of Arabian wood-carving seem to be la- 
menting their fate ; and the only room which is not 
desolate is the one where old tiles lie in disorder upon 
the floor, much as they lie on broken marble pavements 
of the ancient houses which, half ruined and buried 
in rubbish, still exist in the old quarters. Why one 
should be so inconsistent as to find no fault with Gizeb, 
where rows of antiquities torn from their proper places 
confront us, where show-cases abound, and yet at the 
same time make an outcry over this poor little morsel 
at El Hakim, remains a mystery. Possibly it is because 
the massive statues and the solid little gods of ancient 
Egypt do not require an appropriate background, as do 
the delicate fancies of Saracenic taste. However this 
may be, to some of us the Arab Museum looks as if a 
New England farmer's wife had tried her best to make 
things orderly within its borders, poor soul, in spite of 
the strangeness of the articles with which she was 
obliged to deal. It must, however, be added that the 



262 



museum will not make this impression upon persons 
who are indifferent to the general aspect of an aisle, or 
of a series of walls — persons who care only for the ar- 
ticles which adorn them — the lovers of detail, in short. 
And it is well for all of us to join this class as soon as 
our feet have crossed the threshold. For we shall be re- 
paid for it. The details are exquisite. 

The Arab Museum has been established recently. 
Every one is grateful to the zeal which has rescued from 
further injury so many specimens of a vanishing art. 
One covets a little chest for the Koran which is made 
of sandal-wood. It is incrusted with arabesques carved 
in ivory, and has broad hasps and locks of embossed 
silver. There are many koursis, or small, stool-like ta- 
bles ; one of these has panels of silver filigree, and fret- 
ted medallions bearing the name of the Sultan Moham- 
med ebn Kalaoon, thus showing that it once belonged 
to the mosque at the Citadel which was built by that 
Memlook ruler — the mosque whose minarets are orna- 
mented with picturesque bands of emerald-hued porce- 
lain. The illuminated Korans are not here ; they are 
kept in the Public Library in the Street of the Syca- 
mores. Perhaps the most beautiful of the museum's 
treasures are the old lamps of Arabian glass. In 
shape they are vases, as they were simply filled with 
perfumed oil which carried a floating wick ; the colors 
are usually a pearly background, faintly tinged some- 
times by the hue we call ashes of roses ; upon this 
background are ornaments of blue, gold, and red; oc- 
casionally these ornaments are Arabic letters forming 
a name or text. These lamps were made in the thir- 
teenth and fourteenth centuries ; the glass, which has 
as marked characteristics of its own as Palissy ware, so 
that once seen it can never be confounded with any 
other, has a delicate beauty which is unrivalled. 



263 



HELIOPOLIS 



Like the pyramids, Heliopolis belongs to Cairo. On 
the way thither, one first traverses the pleasant suburb 
of Abbasieh. How one traverses it depends upon 
his taste. The most enthusiastic pedestrian soon gives 
up walking in the city of the Khedive save in the 
broad streets of the new quarter. The English ride, 
one meets every day their gallant mounted bands ; but 
these are generally residents and their visitors, and the 
horses are their own ; for the traveller there are only 
the street carriages and the donkeys. The carriages 
are dubiously loose-jointed, and the horses (whose mis- 
ery has already been described) have but two gaits — the 
walk of a dying creature and the gallop of despair; 
unless, therefore, one wishes to mount a dromedary, he 
must take a donkey. But the " must " is not a dispar- 
agement; the white and gray donkeys of Cairo — the 
best of them — are good-natured, gay-hearted, strong, 
and even handsome. They have a coquettish way of 
arching their necks and holding their chins (if a don- 
key can be said to have a chin), which always remind- 
ed me of George Eliot's description of Gwendolen's 
manner of poising her head in Daniel Deronda. George 
Eliot goes on to warn other young ladies that it is use- 
less to try to imitate this proud little air, unless one 
has a throat like Gwendolen's. And, in the same spir- 
it, one must warn other donkeys that they must be born 
in Cairo to be beautiful. Upon several occasions I rec- 
ognized vanity in my donkey. He knew perfectly 
when he was adorned with his holiday necklaces — one 
of imitation sequins, the other of turquoise-hued beads. 
I am sure that he would have felt much depressed if 
deprived of his charm against magic — the morsel of 
parchment inscribed with Arabic characters which dec- 
orated his breast. His tail and his short mane were 



264 



dyed fashionably with henna, but his legs had not been 
shaved in the pattern which represents filigree garters, 
and whenever a comrade who had this additional glory 
passed him, he became distinctly melancholy, and brood- 
ed about it for several minutes. There is nothing in 
the world so deprecating as the profile of one of these 
Cairo donkeys when he finds himself obliged, by the 
pressure of the crowd, to push against a European ; his 
long nose and his polite eye as he passes are full of 
friendly apologies. The donkey-boy, in his skull-cap 
and single garment, runs behind his beast. These lads 
are very quick-witted. They have ready for their don- 
keys five or six names, and they seldom make a mis- 
take in applying them according to the supposed na- 
tionality of their patrons of the moment, so that the 
Englishman learns that he has Annie Laurie; the 
Frenchman, Napoleon ; the German, Bismarck ; the 
Italian, Garibaldi; and the Americans, indiscriminate- 
ly, Hail Columbia, Yankee Doodle, and General Grant. 
In passing through the Abbasieh quarter, we always 
came, sooner or later, upon a wedding. The different 
stages of a native marriage require, indeed, so many 
days for their accomplishment that nuptial festivities 
are a permanent institution in Cairo, like the police- 
men and the water-carts, rather than an occasional event, 
as in other places. One day, upon turning into a nar- 
row street, we discovered that a long portion of it had 
been roofed over with red cloth ; from the centre of 
this awning four large chandeliers were suspended by 
cords, and at each end of the improvised tent were 
hoops adorned with the little red Egyptian banners 
which look like fringed napkins. In the roadway, 
placed against the walls of the houses on each side, 
were rows of wooden settees ; one of these seats was 
occupied by the band, which kept up a constant piping 
and droning, and upon the others were squatted the 



265 



invited guests. Every now and then a man came from 
a gayly adorned door on the left, which was that of the 
bridegroom, bringing with him a tray covered with the 
tiny cups of coffee set in their filigree stands ; he of- 
fered coffee to all. In the meanwhile, in the centre of 
the roadway between the settees, an Egyptian, in his 
long blue gown, was dancing. The expression of re- 
sponsibility on his face amounted to anxiety as he took 
his steps with great care, now lifting one bare foot as 
high as he could, and turning it side wise, as if to show 
us the sole ; now putting it down and hopping upon it, 
while he displayed to us in the same way the sole of 
the other. This formal dancing is done by the guests 
when no public performers are employed. Some one 
must dance to express the revelry of the occasion ; 
those who are invited, therefore, undertake the duty 
one by one. When at last we went on our way we 
were obliged to ride directly through the reception, our 
donkeys brushing the band on one side and the guests 
on the other ; the dancer on duty paused for a moment, 
wiping his face with the tail of his gown. 

The road leading to Heliopolis has a charm which it 
shares with no other in the neighborhood of Cairo : at 
a certain point the desert — the real desert — comes roll- 
ing up to its very edge ; one can look across the sand 
for miles. The desert is not a plain, the sand lies in 
ridges and hillocks ; and this sand in many places is 
not so mucb like the sand of the sea-shore as it is like 
the dust of one of our country roads in August. The 
contrast between the bright green of the cultivated fields 
(the land which is reached by the inundation) and these 
silvery, arrested waves is striking, the line of their meet- 
ing being as sharply defined as that between sea and 
shore. I have called the color silvery, but that is only 
one of the tints which the sand assumes. An artist has 
jotted down the names of the colors used in an effort to 



266 



copy the hues on an expanse of desert before him ; be- 
ginning with the foreground, these were brown, dark 
red, violet, blue, gold, rose, crimson, pale green, orange, 
indigo blue, and sky blue. Colors supply the place of 
shadows, for there is no shade anywhere ; all is wide 
open and light ; and yet the expanse does not strike 
one in the least as bare. For myself, I can say that of 
all the marvels which one sees in Egypt, the desert 
produced the most profound impression ; and I fancy 
that, as regards this feeling, I am but one of many. 
The cause of the attraction is a mystery. It cannot be 
found in the roving tendencies of our ancestor, since 
he was arboreal, and there are no trees in the strange- 
tinted waste. The old legend says that Adam's first 
wife, Lilith, fled to Egypt, where she was permitted to 
live in the desert, and where she still exists : 

" It was Lilith, the wife of Adam ; 
Not a drop of her blood was human." 

Perhaps it is Lilith's magic that we feel. 

Heliopolis, the City of the Sun, the On of the forty- 
first chapter of Genesis, is five miles from Cairo. Noth- 
ing of it is now left above ground save an obelisk and 
a few ruined walls. The obelisk, which is the oldest 
yet discovered, bears the name of the king in whose 
reign it was erected ; this gives us the date — 5000 
years ago ; that is, more than a millennium before the 
days of Moses. At Heliopolis was the Temple of the 
Sun, and the schools which Herodotus visited " because 
the teachers are considered the most accomplished men 
in Egypt." When Strabo came hither, four hundred years 
later, he saw the house which Plato had occupied ; Mo- 
ses here learned "all the wisdom of the Egyptians." 
Papyri describe Heliopolis as " full of obelisks." Two 
of these columns were carried to Alexandria 1937 years 
ago, and set up before the Temple of Caesar. Accord- 




THE INUNDATION NEAR CAIRO 



269 



ing to one authority, this temple was built by Cleopatra ; 
in any case, the two obelisks acquired the name of Cleo- 
patra's Needles, and though the temple itself in time 
disappeared, they remained where they had been placed 
— one erect, one prostrate — until, in recent years, one 
was given to London and the other to New York. One 
recites all this in a breath in order to bring up, if pos- 
sible, the associations which rush confusedly through 
the mind as one stands beside this red granite column 
rising alone in the green fields at Heliopolis. No myth 
itself, it was erected in days which are to us mythical 
— days which are the jumping-off place of our human 
history ; yet they were not savages who polished this 
granite, who sculptured this inscription ; ages of civil- 
ization of a certain sort must have preceded them. Be- 
ginning with the Central Park, we force our minds 
backward in an endeavor to make these dates real. 
" Homer was a modern compared with the designers 
of this pillar," we say to ourselves. " The Mycenae 
relics were articles de Paris of centuries and centuries 
later." But repeating the words (and even rolling the 
r's) are useless efforts ; the imagination will not rise ; it 
is crushed into stupidity by such a vista of years. As 
reaction, perhaps as revenge, we flee to geology and 
Darwin ; here, at least, one can take breath. 

Near Heliopolis there is an ostrich yard. The giant 
birds are very amusing ; they walk about with long- 
steps, and stretch their necks. If allowed, they would 
tap us all on the head, I think, after the fashion of the 
ostriches in that vivid book, The Story of an African 
Farm. 

FRENCH AND ENGLISH 

Gerard de Nerval begins his volume on Egypt by 
announcing that the women of Cairo are so thickly 
veiled that the European (i.e., the Frenchman?) be- 



270 



comes discouraged after a very few days, and, in con- 
sequence, goes up the Nile. This, at least, is one effort 
to explain why strangers spend so short a time in Cai- 
ro. The French, as a nation, are not travellers; they 
have small interest in any country beyond their own 
borders. A few of their writers have cherished a lik- 
ing for the East; but it has been what we may call a 
home -liking. They give us the impression of having 
sincerely believed that they could, owing to their ex- 
treme intelligence, imagine for themselves (and repro- 
duce for others) the entire Orient from one fez, one 
Turkish pipe, and a picture of the desert. Gautier, for 
instance, has described many Eastern landscapes which 
his eyes have never beheld. Pictures are, indeed, much 
to Frenchmen. The acme of this feeling is reached by 
one of the Goncourt brothers, who writes, in their re- 
cently published journal, that the true way to enjoy a 
summer in the country is to fill one's town-house dur- 
ing the summer months with beautiful paintings of 
green fields, wild forests, and purling brooks, and then 
stay at home, and look at the lovely pictured scenes in 
comfort. French volumes of travels in the East are 
written as much with exclamation-points as with the 
letters of the alphabet. Lamartine and his disciples 
frequently paused "to drop a tear." Later Gallic voy- 
agers divided all scenery into two classes ; the cities 
"laugh," the plains are "amiable," or they "smile"; 
if they do not do this, immediately they are' set down 
as " sad." One must be bold indeed to call Edmond 
About, the distinguished author of. Tolla, ridiculous. 
The present writer, not being bold, is careful to abstain 
from it. But the last scene of his volume on Egypt 
(Le Fellah, published in 1883), describing the hero, 
with all his clothes rolled into a gigantic turban round 
his head, swimming after the yacht which bears away 
the heroine — a certain impossible Miss Grace — from the 



271 



harbor of Port Said, must have caused, I think, some 
amused reflection in the minds of English and Ameri- 
can readers. It is but just to add that among the 
younger French writers are several who have aban- 
doned these methods. Gabriel Charmes's volume on 
Cairo contains an excellent account of the place. 
Pierre Loti and Maupassant have this year (1890) 
given to the world pages about northwestern Africa 
which are marvels of actuality as well as of unsur- 
passed description. 

The French at present are greatly angered by the 
continuance of the English occupation of Egypt. Since 
Napoleon's day they have looked upon the Nile country 
as sure to be theirs some time. They built the Suez 
Canal when the English were opposed to the scheme. 
They remember when their influence was dominant. 
The French tradesmen, the French milliners and dress- 
makers in Cairo, still oppose a stubborn resistance to 
the English way of counting. They give the prices of 
their goods and render their accounts in Egyptian pias- 
ters, or in napoleons and francs ; they refuse to compre- 
hend shillings and pounds. And here, by-the-way, 
Americans would gladly join their side of the contro- 
versy. England alone, among the important countries 
of the world, has a currency which is not based upon 
the decimal system. The collected number of six- 
pences lost each year in England, by American travel- 
lers who mistake the half-crown piece for two shillings, 
would make a large sum. The bewilderment over Eng- 
lish prices given in a coin which has no existence is like 
that felt by serious-minded persons who read Alice in 
Wonderland from a sense of duty. Talk of the Eng- 
lish as having no imagination when the guinea exists I 

France lost her opportunity in Egypt when her fleet 
sailed away from Alexandria Harbor in July, 1882. 
Her ships were asked to remain and take part in the 



272 



bombardment ; they refused, and departed. The Eng- 
lish, thus being left alone, quieted the country later by 
means of an army of occupation. An English army of 
occupation has been there ever since. 

At present it is not a large army. The number of 
British soldiers in 1890 is given as three thousand; 
the remaining troops are Egyptians, with English regi- 
mental officers. During the winter months the short- 
waisted red coat of Tommy Atkins enlivens with its 
cheerful blaze the streets of Cairo at every turn. The 
East and the West may be said to be personified by 
the slender, supple Arabs in their flowing draperies, and 
by these lusty youths of light complexion, with straight 
backs and stiff shoulders, who walk, armed with a rat- 
tan, in the centre of the pavement, wearing over one 
ear the cloth-covered saucer which passes for a head- 
covering. Tommy Atkins patronizes the donkeys with 
all his heart. One of the most frequently seen groups 
is a party of laughing scarlet-backed youths mounted 
on the smallest beasts they can find, and careering 
down the avenues at the donkey's swiftest speed, fol- 
lowed by the donkey-boys, delighted and panting. As the 
spring comes on, Atkins changes his scarlet for lighter 
garments, and dons the summer helmet. This species 
of hat is not confined to the sons of Mars ; it is worn 
in warm weather by Europeans of all nationalities who 
are living or travelling in the East. It may be cool. 
Without doubt, aesthetically considered, it is the most 
unbecoming head-covering known to the civilized world. 
It has a peculiar power of causing its wearer to appear 
both ignoble and pulmonic ; for, viewed in front, the 
most distinguished features, under its tin-pan-like visor, 
become plebeian ; and, viewed behind, the strongest 
masculine throat looks wizened and consumptive. 

The English have benefited Egypt. They have put 
an end to the open knavery in high places which flour- 




'-' -. -S^-Ki/'K V&<% ■■'■'^rv' -.W' ';:■-. 



Ki«llilii 

iHimilllllr' ... 








A MOHAMMEDAN CEMETERY, CAIRO 



275 



islied unchecked ; they have taught honesty ; they have 
so greatly improved the methods of irrigation that a 
bad Nile (i.e., a deficient inundation) no longer means 
starvation ; finally, they have taken hold of the mis- 
managed finances, disentangled them, set them in or- 
der, and given them at least a start in the right direc- 
tion. The natives fret over some of their restrictions. 
And they say that the English have, first of all, taken 
care of their own interests. In addition, they greatly 
dislike seeing so many Englishmen holding office over 
them. But this last objection is simply the other side 
of the story. If the English are to help the country, 
they must be on the spot in order to do it ; and it ap- 
pears to be a fixed rule in all British colonies that the 
representatives of the government, whether high or 
low, shall be made, as regards material things, ex- 
tremely comfortable. Egypt is not yet a British col- 
ony ; she is a viceroy alty under the suzerainty of the 
Porte, But practically she is to-day governed by the 
English ; and, to the American traveller at least (what- 
ever the French may think), it appears probable that 
English authority will soon be as absolute in the Khe- 
dive's country as it is now in India. 

In Cairo, in 1890, the English colony played lawn- 
tennis ; it attended the races ; when Stanley returned 
to civilization it welcomed him with enthusiasm; and 
when, later, Prince Eddie came, it attended a gala per- 
formance of Aula at the opera-house — a resurrection 
from the time of Ismail ordered by Ismail's son for 
the entertainment of the heir -presumptive (one won- 
ders whether Tufik himself found entertainment in it). 

In the little English church, which stands amid its 
roses and vines in the new quarter, is a wall tablet of 
red and white marble — the memorial of a great English- 
man. It bears the following inscription : " In memory 
of Major-General Charles George Gordon, C.B. Born 



276 



at Woolwich, Jan. 28, 1833. Killed at the defence of 
Khartoum, Jan. 26, 1885." Above is a sentence from 
Gordon's last letter: "I have done my best for the 
honor of our country." 

St. George of Khartoum, as he has been called. If 
objection is made to the bestowal of this title, it might 
be answered that the saints of old lived before the age 
of the telegraph, the printer, the newspaper, and the 
reporter ; possibly they too would not have seemed to 
us faultless if every one of their small decisions and 
all their trivial utterances had been subjected to the 
electric-light publicity of to-day. Perhaps Gordon was 
a fanatic, and his discernment was not accurate. But 
he was single-hearted, devoted to what he considered 
to be his duty, and brave to a striking degree. When 
we remember how he faced death through those weary 
days we cannot criticise him. The story of that rescu- 
ing army which came so near him and yet failed, and 
of his long hoping in vain, only to be shot down at the 
last, must always remain one of the most pathetic tales 
of history. 

SOUVENIRS 

As the warm spring closes, every one selects some- 
thing to carry homeward. Leaving aside those fortu- 
nate persons who can purchase the ancient carved wood- 
work of an entire house, or Turkish carpets by the 
dozen, the rest of us keep watch of the selections of our 
friends while we make our own. Among these we find 
the jackets embroidered in silver and gold ; the inevit- 
able fez ; two or three blue tiles of the thirteenth cen- 
tury; a water-jug, or kulleh ; a fly -brush with ivory 
handle; attar of roses and essence of sandal -wood; 
Assiout ware in vases and stoups; a narghileh; the 
gauze scarfs embroidered with Persian benedictions; a 
koursi inlaid with mother-of-pearl ; Arabian inkstands — 



277 



long cases of silver or brass, to be worn like a dagger in 
the belt; a keffiyeb, or delicate silken head-shawl with 
white knotted fringe ; the Arabian finger-bowls ; the 
little coffee-cups ; images of Osiris from the tombs ; a 
native bracelet and anklet ; and, finally, a scarab or two, 
whose authenticity is always exciting, like an unsolved 
riddle. A picture of these mementos of Cairo would 
not be complete for some of us without two of those 
constant companions of so many long mornings — the 
dusty, shufiling, dragging, slipping, venerable, abomin- 
able mosque shoes. I 



HOMEWARD-BOUND 

" We who pursue 
Our business with unslackening stride, 

Traverse in troops, with care-fill'd breast, 
The soft Mediterranean side, 

The Nile, the East, 
And see all sights from pole to pole, 
And glance and nod and bustle by, 
And never once possess our soul 
Before we die.'' 

So chanted Matthew Arnold of the English of to-day. 
And if we are to believe what is preached to us and 
hurled at us, it is a reproach even more applicable to 
Americans than to the English themselves. One Ameri- 
can traveller, however, wishes to record modestly a dis- 
belief in the universal truth of this idea. Many of us 
are, indeed, haunted by our business; many of us do 
glance and nod and bustle by *, it is a class, and a large 
class. But these hurried people are not all; an equal 
number of us, who, being less in haste, may be less con- 
spicuous perhaps, are the most admiring travellers in 
the world. American are the bands who journey to 
Stratford-upon-Avon, and go down upon their knees — 



278 



almost — when they reach the sacred spot; American 
are the pilgrims who pay reverent visits to all the Eng- 
lish cathedrals, one after the other, from Carlisle to 
Exeter, from Durham to Canterbury. In the East, like- 
wise, it is the transatlantic travellers who are so deeply 
impressed by the strangeness and beauty of the scenes 
about them that they forget to talk about their personal 
comforts (or, rather, the lack of them). 

There is another matter upon which a word may be 
said, and this is the habit of judging the East from the 
stand-point of one's home customs, whether the home 
be American or English. It is, of course, easy to find 
faults in the social systems of the Oriental nations ; 
they have laws and usages which are repugnant to all 
our feelings, which seem to us horrible. But it is well 
to remember that it is impossible to comprehend any 
nation not our own unless one has lived a long time 
among its people, and made one's self familiar with 
their traditions, their temperament, their history, and, 
above all, with the language which they speak. Anything 
less than this is observation from the outside alone, 
which is sure to be founded upon misapprehension. The 
French and the English are separated by merely the 
few miles of the Channel, and they have, to a certain ex- 
tent, a common language ; for though the French do 
not often understand English, the English very generally 
understand something of French. Yet it is said that 
these two nations have never thoroughly comprehended 
each other either as nations or individuals ; and it is 
even added that, owing to their differing tempera- 
ments, they will never reach a clear appreciation of each 
other's merits ; demerits, of course, are easier. Our 
own country has a language which is, on the whole, 
nearer the English tongue perhaps than is the speech 
of France ; yet have we not felt now and then that 
English travellers have misunderstood us? If this is 



if 




SOUVENIRS OF CAIRO 



the case among people who are all Occidentals together, 
how much more difficult must be a thorough compre- 
hension by us of those ancient nations who were old 
before we were born ? 

The East is the land of mystery. If one cares for it 
at all, one loves it; there is no half-way. If one does 
not love it, one really (though perhaps not avowedly) 
hates it — hates it and all its ways. But for those who 
love it the charm is so strong that no surprise is felt in 
reading or hearing of Europeans who have left all to 
take up a wandering existence there for long years or 
for life — the spirit of Browning's " What's become of 
Waring ?" 

All of us cannot be Warings, however, and the time 
comes at last when we must take leave. The streets of 
Cairo have been for some time adorned with placards 



280 



whose announcements begin, in large type, " Travellers 
returning to Europe." We are indeed far away when 
returning to Europe is a step towards home. We wait 
for the last festival — the Shem-en-Neseem, or Smelling 
of the Zephyr — the annual picnic day, when the people 
go into the country to gather flowers and breathe the 
soft air before the opening of the regular season for 
the Khamsin. Then comes the journey by railway to 
Alexandria. We wave a handkerchief (now fringed on 
all four sides by the colored threads of the laundresses) 
to the few friends still left behind. They respond ; and 
so do all the Mustaphas, Achmets, and Ibrahims who 
have carried our parcels and trotted after our donkeys. 
Then we take a seat by the window, to watch for the 
last time the flying Egyptian landscape — the green plain, 
the tawny Nile, the camels on the bank, the villages, and 
the palm-trees, and behind them the solemn line of the 
desert. 

At sunset the steamer passes down the harbor, and, 
pushing out to sea, turns westward. A faint crescent 
moon becomes visible over the Ras-et-Teen palace. It 
is the moon of Ramadan. Presently a cannon on the 
shore ushers in, with its distant sound, the great Mo- 
hammedan fast. 



CORFU AND THE IONIAN SEA 



CORFU AND THE IONIAN" SEA 

Sad eyes ! the blue sea laughs, as heretofore. 
Ah, singing birds, your happy music pour ; 

Ah, poets, leave the sordid earth awhile ; 
Flit to these ancient gods we still adore : 

"It may be we shall touch the happy isle!" 

— Translated by Andrew Lang. 

Not long before Christmas, last year, I found myself 
travelling from Ancona down the Adriatic coast of 
Italy by the fast train called the Indian Mail. There 
was excitement in the very name, and more in the con- 
versation of the people who sat beside me at the table 
of a queer little eating-house on the shore, before whose 
portal the Indian Mail stopped late in the evening. We 
all descended and w^ent in. A dusky apartment was 
our discovery, and a table illuminated by guttering can- 
dles that flared in the strong currents of air. Roast 
chickens were stacked on this table in a high pile, and 
loaves of dark-colored bread were placed here and there, 
with portly straw - covered flasks of the wine of the 
country. No one came to serve us ; we were expected 
to serve ourselves. A landlord who looked like an 
obese Don Juan was established behind a bench in a 
distant corner, where he made coffee with amiability 



284 



and enthusiasm for those who desired it. It was sup- 
posed that we were to go to him, before we returned to 
the train, and pay for what we had consumed ; and I 
hope that his trust in us was not misplaced, for with 
his objection to exercise, and his dim little lamp which 
illuminated only his smiles, there was nothing for him 
but trust. The Indian Mail carries passengers who are 
outward-bound for Constantinople, Egypt, and India; 
his confidence rested perhaps in the belief that per- 
sons about to embark on such dangerous seas would 
hardly begin the enterprise by crime. To other minds, 
however, it might have seemed the very moment to per- 
petrate enormities. As we attacked the chickens, I 
perceived in the flickering glare that all my compan- 
ions were English. Everybody talked, and the thrill of 
the one American increased as the names of the steam- 
ers waiting at Brindisi were mentioned — the •ffydaspes, 
the Coromandel, the Cathay, the Mirzapore : towards 
what lands of sandal -wood, what pleasure - domes of 
Kubla-Khan, might not one sail on ships bearing those 
titles ! The present voyagers, however, were all old 
travellers ; they took a purely practical view of the 
Orient. Nevertheless, their careless " Cairo," " Port 
Said," " Bombay," " Ceylon," " Java," were as fascinat- 
ing as the shining balls of a juggler when a dozen are 
in the air at the same moment. My right-hand neigh- 
bor, upon learning that my destination was Corfu, 
good-naturedly offered the information that the voyage 
was an easy one. " Corfu, however, is not what it has 
been !" 

" But, Polly, it is looking up a little, now that the 
Empress of Austria is building a villa there," suggested 
a sister correctively. 

After this outburst of talk, we all climbed back into 
the waiting train, and went flying on towards the south, 
following the lonely, wild-looking coast, with the wind 



285 



from the Adriatic crying over our heads like a banshee. 
It was midnight when we reached Brindisi. At pres- 
ent this, the ancient Brundusium, is the jumping-off 
place for the traveller on his way to the East; here he 
must leave the land and trust himself to an enigmatical 
deep. But if he wishes to have the sensation in full 
force, he must not delay his journey ; for, presently, the 
Indian Mail will rush through Greece and meet the 
steamers at Cape Colonna ; and then, before long, there 
will be another spurt, and Pullman trains will go through 
to Calcutta, with a ferry over the Bosporus. 

At Brindisi I became the prey of five barelegged 
boatmen, who, owing to the noise of the wind and the 
water, communicated with each other by yells. The 
Austrian -Lloyd steamer from Trieste, outward-bound 
for Constantinople, which carried the friends I was ex- 
pecting to meet, was said to be lying out in the stream, 
and I enjoyed the adventure of setting forth alone on 
the dark sea in search of her, in a small boat rowed by 
my Otranto crew. During the transit there was not 
much time to think of Brundusium, with its memories 
of Horace and Virgil. But there was another oppor- 
tunity to reflect upon the question, perplexing to the 
unskilled mind — namely, Why it is that an American 
abroad is constantly called upon to praise the wharves, 
piers, and landing-stages, and with the same breath to 
condemn as disgraces to civilization the like nautical 
platforms of his own country, when he is so often 
obliged, on foreign shores, to embark and disembark 
by means of a tossing small boat or a crowded tender, 
whereas at home, with the aid of those same makeshift 
constructions for whose short-comings he is supposed 
to blush, he walks on board of his steamship with no 
trouble whatever ? 

Early the next morning, awakening on a shelf in a 
red velvet cupboard, I was explaining to myself vaguely 



286 



that the cupboard was a dream, when there appeared 
through the port-hole a picture of such fairy-tale beauty 
that the dream became lyrical — it began to sing : 

"Far and few, far and few, 

Are the lands where the Jumblies live !" 

At last those famous lines were actualities, for surely 
this was the sea of the Jumblies, and those heights with- 
out doubt were " the hills of Chankly Bore." (There 
are people, I believe, who do not care for the Jumblies. 
There are persons who do not care for Alice in Won- 
derland, nor for Brer Rabbit, when he played on his 
triangle down by the brook.) 

The sea which I saw was of a miraculously blue tint; 
in the distance the cliffs of a mountainous island rose 
boldly from the water, their color that of a violet pansy ; 
a fishing -boat with red sails was crossing the fore- 
ground ; over all glittered an atmosphere so golden 
that it was like that of sunset in other lands, though 
the sky, at the same time, had unmistakably the purity 
of early morning. Later, on the deck, during the 
broadly practical time of after breakfast, this view, 
instead of diminishing in attraction, grew constantly 
more fair. The French novelist of to-day, Paul Bour- 
get, describes Corfu as " so lovely that one wants to 
take it in one's arms !" Another Frenchman, who was 
not given to the making of phrases, no less a person- 
age than Napoleon Bonaparte, has left upon record his 
belief that Corfu has "the most beautiful situation in 
the world." What, then, is this beauty ? What is this 
situation? 

First, there is the long and charming approach, with 
the snow-capped mountains of Albania, in European 
Turkey, looming up against the sky at the end ; then 
comes the landlocked harbor ; then the picturesque 



289 



old town, its high stone houses, all of creamy hue, 
crowded together on the hill-side above the sea-wall, 
with here and there a bell-tower shooting into the blue. 
Below is the busy, many-colored port. Above towers 
the dark double fortress on its rock. And, finally, the 
dense, grove-like vegetation of the island encircles all, 
and its own mountain-peaks rise behind, one of them 
attaining a height of three thousand feet. There are 
other islands of which all this, or almost all, can be 
said — Capri, for instance. But at Corfu there are two 
attributes peculiar to the region ; these are : first, the 
color ; second, the transparency. Although the voyage 
from Brindisi hardly occupies twelve hours, the atmos- 
phere is utterly unlike that of Italy ; there is no haze ; 
all is clear. Some of us love the Italian haze (which is 
not in the least a mist), that soft veil which makes the 
mountains look as if they were covered with velvet. 
But a love of this softness need not, I hope, make us 
hate everything that is different. Greece (and Corfu 
is a Greek island) seemed to me all light — the lightest 
country in the world. In other lands, if we climb a 
high mountain and stand on its bald summit at noon, 
we feel as if we were taking a bath in light ; in Greece 
we have this feeling everywhere, even in the valleys. 
Euripides described his countrymen as "forever deli- 
cately tripping through the pellucid air," and so their 
modern descendants trip to this day. This dry at- 
mosphere has an exciting effect upon the nervous 
energy, and the faces of the people show it. It has 
also, I believe, the defect of this good quality — namely, 
an over-stimulation, which sometimes produces neu- 
ralgia. In some respects Americans recognize this 
clearness of the atmosphere, and its influence, good 
and bad ; the air of northern New England in the sum- 
mer, and of California at the same season, is not un- 
like it. But in America the transparency is more 
19 



290 



white, more blank ; we have little of the coloring that 
exists m Greece, tints whose intensity must be seen to 
be believed. The mountains, the hills, the fields, are 
sometimes bathed in lilac. Then comes violet for the 
plains, while the mountains are rose that deepens into 
crimson. At other times salmon, pink, and purple 
tinges are seen, and ochre, saffron, and cinnamon 
brown. This description applies to the whole of 
Greece, but among the Ionian Islands the effect of 
the color is doubled by the wonderful tint of the sur- 
rounding sea. 1 promise not to mention this hue 
again ; hereafter it can be taken for granted, for it is 
always present ; but for this once I must say that you 
may imagine the bluest blue you know — the sky, lapis 
lazuli, sapphires, the eyes of some children, the Bay of 
Naples — and the Ionian Sea is bluer than any of these. 
And nowhere else have I seen such dear, queer little 
foam sprays. They are so small and so very white on 
the blue, and they curl over the surface of the water 
even when the sea is perfectly calm, which makes me 
call them queer. You meet them miles from land. 
And all the shores are whitened with their never- 
ceasing play. It is a pygmy surf. 

It was eleven o'clock in the morning when our 
steamer reached her anchorage before the island town. 
Immediately she was surrounded by small boats, whose 
crews were perfectly lawless, demanding from strangers 
whatever they thought they could get, and obtaining 
their demands, because there was no way to escape 
them except by building a raft. Upon reaching land 
one forgets the extortion, for the windows of the hotel 
overlook the esplanade, and this open space amiably 
offers to persons who are interested in first impressions 
a panoramic history of two thousand five hundred years 
in a series of striking mementos. Let me premise that 
as regards any solid knowledge of these islands, only a 



291 



contemptible smattering can be obtained in a stay so 
short as mine. Corfu and her sisters have borne a 
conspicuous part in what we used to call ancient his- 
tory. Through the Roman days they appear and re- 
appear. In the times of the Crusaders their position 
made them extremely important. Years of study could 
not exhaust their records, nor months of research their 
antiquities. To comprehend them rightfully one must 
indeed be an historian, an archaeologist, and a painter 
at one and the same time, and one must also be good- 
natured. Few of us can hope to unite all these. The 
next best thing, therefore, is to go and see them with 
whatever eyes and mind we happen to possess. Good- 
nature will perhaps return after the opening encounter 
with the boatmen is over. 

From our windows, then, we could note, first, the 
Citadel, high on its rock, three hundred feet above the 
town. The oldest part of the present fortress was erect- 
ed in 1550; but the site has always been the strong- 
hold. Corinthians, Athenians, Spartans, Macedonians, 
and Romans have in turn held the island, and this rock 
is the obvious keep. Later came four hundred years of 
Venetian control, and I am ashamed to add that the 
tokens of this last-named period were to me more delight- 
ful than any of the other memorials. I say "ashamed," 
for why should one be haunted by Venice in Greece? 
With the Parthenon to look forward to, why should the 
lion of St. Mark, sculptured on Corfu fagades, be a thing 
to greet with joy ? Many of us are familiar with the 
disconsolate figures of some of our fellow-countrymen 
and countrywomen in the galleries of Europe, tired and 
dejected tourists wandering from picture to picture, but 
finding nothing half so interesting as the memory of 
No. 4699 Columbus Avenue at home. I am afraid it is 
equally narrow to be scanning Corfu, Athens, Cairo, and 
the sands of the desert itself for something that re- 



292 



minds one of another place, even though that place be 
the enchanting- pageant of a town at the head of the 
Adriatic. History, however, as related by the espla- 
nade, pays no attention to these aberrations of the looker- 
on ; its story goes steadily forward. The lions of 
St. Mark on the facades, and another memento of the 
Doges — namely, the statue of Count von der Schulen- 
burg, who commanded the Venetian forces in the great 
defence of Corfu in 1716 — these memorials have as 
companions various tokens of the English occupation, 
which, following that of Venice, continued through forty- 
nine years — that is, from 1815 to 1863. Before this 
there had been a short period of French dominion ; 
but the esplanade, so far as I could discover, contains 
no memorial of it, unless Napoleon's phrase can stand 
for one — and I think it can. The souvenirs of the Brit- 
ish rule are conspicuous. The first is the palace built 
for the English Governor, a functionary who bore the 
sonorous official name of Lord High Commissioner, a 
title which was soon shortened to the odd abbreviation 
" the Lord High." This palace is an uninteresting con- 
struction stretching stiffly across the water-side of the 
esplanade, and cutting off the view of the harbor. It is 
now the property of the King of Greece, but at present 
it is seldom occupied. While we were at Corfu its 
ghostliness was enlivened for a while ; Prince Henry of 
Prussia was there with his wife. They had left their 
yacht (if so large a vessel as the Irene can be called a 
yacht), and were spending a week at the palace. An 
hour after their departure entrance was again permit- 
ted, and an old man, still trembling from the excite- 
ment of the royal sojourn, conducted us from room to 
room. All was ugly. Fading flowers in the vases 
showed that an attempt had been made to brighten the 
place ; but the visitors must have been endowed with a 
strong- natural cheerfulness to withstand with success 



293 



such a mixture of the commonplace and the dreary as 
the palace presents. They had the magnificent view to 
look at, and there was always the graceful silhouette of 




THE PALACE 



the Irene out on the water. She could come up at any 
time and take them away ; it was this, probably, that 
kept them alive. 

If the palace is ordinary, what shall be said of another 
memento which adorns the esplanade ? This is a high, 
narrow building, so uncouth that it causes a smile. It 
looks raw, bare, and so primitive that if it had a pulley 
at the top it might be taken for a warehouse erected on 
the bank of a canal in one of our Western towns ; one 
sees in imagination canal-boats lying beneath, and bulg- 
ing sacks going up or down. Yet this is nothing less 
than that University of the Ionian Islands which was 
founded by the Earl of Guildford early in this century, 
the epoch of English enthusiasm for Greece, the days of 
the Philhellenes. Lord Guildford, who was one of the 
distinguished North family, gave largely of his fortune 
and of his time to establish this university. Con- 
temporary records speak of him as " an amiable noble- 
man." But after seeing his touching! y ugly academy 
and his bust (which is not ugly) in the hall of the ex- 
tinct Ionian Senate at the palace, one feels sure that he 



294 



was more than amiable — he must have been original 
also. The English are called cold ; but as individuals 
they are capable sometimes of extraordinary enthusi- 
asms for distant causes and distant people. Advent- 
urous travellers as they are, does the charm lie in the 
word "distant"? The defunct academy now shelters a 
school where vigorous young Greeks sit on benches, 
opposite each other, in narrow, doorless compartments 
which resemble the interior of a large omnibus ; this, 
at least, was the arrangement of the ground-floor on the 
day of our visit. Although it was December, the 
boys looked heated. The teachers, who walked up and 
down, had a relentless aspect. Even the porter, white- 
haired and bent, had a will untouched by the least 
decay ; he would not show us the remains of the uni- 
versity library, nor the Roman antiquities which are 




UNIVERSITY OF THE IONIAN ISLANDS 



said to be stored somewhere in a lumber-room, among 
them " fifty - nine frames of mosaic representing a 
bustard in various attitudes." He had not the power, 
apparently, to exhibit these treasures while the school 
exercises were going on, and as soon as they were 



295 



ended — instantly, that very minute — lie intended to eat 
his dinner, and nothing could alter this determination ; 
his face grew ferocious at the mere suggestion. So we 
were obliged to depart without seeing the souvenirs 
of Lord Guildford's enthusiasm ; and owing to the 
glamour which always hangs over the place one has 
failed to see, I have been sure ever since that we 
should have found them the most fascinating objects 
in Corfu. 

At the present school the teaching is done, no doubt, 
in a tongue which would have made the old university 
shudder. In a letter written by Sir G-eorge Bowen in 
1856, from one of the Ionian Islands, there is the fol- 
lowing anecdote : " Bishop Wilberforce told me that 
he recently had, as a candidate at one of his ordinations, 
Mr. M., the son of an English merchant settled in 
Greece. ' I examined him myself,' said the bishop, 
1 when he gave what was to me an unknown pronun- 
ciation.' l Oh, Mr. M.,' I said, ' where did you learn 
Greek V l In Athens, my lord,' replied the trembling 
man." Classical scholars who visit Greece to-day are 
not able to ask the simplest questions ; or, rather, 
they may ask, but no one will understand them. Sev- 
eral of these gentlemen have announced to the world 
that the modern speech of Athens is a barbarous deca- 
dence. It is not for an American, I suppose, to pass 
judgment upon matters of this sort. But when these 
authorities continue as follows : " And even in pro- 
nunciation modern Greek is hopelessly fallen ; the 
ancients never pronounced in this way," may we not ask 
how they can be so sure ? They are not, I take it, in- 
spired, and the phonograph is a modern invention. 
The voice of Robert Browning is stored for coming 
generations ; the people a.d. 3000 may hear him recite 
" How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to 
Aix." Possibly the tones of Lord Salisbury and of Mr. 



296 



Balfour are already garnered and arranged in cylinders 
for the future orators of the South Seas. But we can- 
not know how Pindar spoke any more than we can 
know the song the Sirens sang; the most learned 
scholar cannot, alas ! summon from the past the articu- 
lation of Plato. 

In the esplanade the period of English rule is 
further kept in mind by monuments to the memory of 
three of the Lords High — a statue, an obelisk, and (of 
all things in the world) an imitation of a Greek temple. 
This temple — it is so small that they might call it a 
templette — was erected in honor of Sir Thomas Mait- 
land, a Governor whose arbitrary rule gained for him 




SMALL TEMPLE, MEMORIAL TO SIR THOMAS MAITLAND 



the title of King Tom. The three memorials are offi- 
cially protected, an agreement to that effect having 
been made between the governments of Great Britain 
and Greece. They were never in danger, probably, as 
the English protection was a friendly one. In spite of 
its friendliness, the Corfiotes voted as follows with 



297 



enthusiasm when an opportunity was offered to them : 
" The single and unanimous will of the Ionian people 
has been and is for their reunion with the Kingdom of 
Greece." England yielded to this wish and withdrew — 
a disinterested act which ought to have gained for her 
universal applause. Since 1864 Corfu and her sister 
islands, happily freed at last from foreign control, have 
filled with patriotic pride and contentment their proper 
place as part of the Hellenic kingdom. 

The esplanade also contains the one modern monu- 
ment erected by the Corfiotes themselves — a statue of 
Capo d'Istria. John Capo d'Istria, a native of Corfu, was 
the political leader of Greece when she succeeded in free- 
ing herself from the Turkish yoke. The story of his life 
is a part of the exciting tale of the Greek revolution. 
His measures, after he had attained supreme power, were 
thought to be high-handed, and he was accused also of 
looking too often towards that great empire in the 
North whose boundaries are stretching slowly towards 
Constantinople ; he was resisted, disliked ; finally he 
was assassinated. Time has softened the remembrance 
of his faults, whatever they were, and brought his 
services to the nation into the proper relief ; hence this 
statue, erected in 1887, fifty -six years after his death, 
by young Greece. It is a sufficiently imposing figure 
of white marble, the face turned towards the bay with 
a musing expression. Capo d'Istria — a name which 
might have been invented for a Greek patriot ! The 
Eastern question is a complicated one, and I have no 
knowledge of its intricacies. But a personal observa- 
tion of the hatred of Turkey which exists in every 
Greek heart, and a glance at the map of Europe, lead an 
American mind towards one general idea or fancy — 
namely, that Capo d'Istria was merely in advance of 
his time, and that an alliance between Russia and 
Greece is now one of the probabilities of the near 



298 



future. It is unexpected — at least, to the non-political 
observer — that Hellas should be left to turn for help and 
comfort to the Muscovites, a race to whom, probably, 
her ancient art and literature appeal less strongly than 
they do to any other European people. But she has so 
turned. " Wait till Russia comes down here !" she ap- 
pears to be saying, with deferred menace, to Turkey 
to-day. 

These various monuments of the esplanade do not, 
however, make Corfu in the least modern. They are 
unimportant, they are inconspicuous, when compared 
with the old streets which meander over the slopes be- 
hind them, fringed with a net-work of stone lanes that 
lead down to the water's edge. It has been said that 
the general aspect of the place is Italian. It is true 
that there are arcades like those of Bologna and Padua ; 
that some of the byways have the look of a Venetian 
calle, without its canal ; and that the neighborhood of 
the gay little port resembles, on a small scale, the 
streets which border the harbor of Genoa. In spite of 
this, we have only to look up and see the sky, we have 
only to breathe and note the quality of the air, to per- 
ceive that we are not in Italy. Corfu is Greek, with a 
coating of Italian manners. And it has also caught a 
strong tinge from Asia. Many of the houses have the 
low door and masked entrance which are so character- 
istic of the East ; at the top of the neglected stairway, 
as far as possible from public view, there may be hand- 
some, richly furnished apartments ; but if such rooms 
exist, the jealous love of privacy keeps them hidden. 
This inconspicuous entrance is as universal in the 
Orient as the high wall, shutting off all view of the gar- 
den or park, is universal in England. 

The town of Corfu has 26,000 inhabitants. Among 
the population are Dalmatians, Maltese, Levantines, and 
others; but the Greeks are the dominant race. There 



>vU 



y» 



mm 







STATUE OF CAPO D'lSTRIA 



301 



is a Jews' quarter, and Jews abound, or did abound 
at the time of my visit. Since then fanaticism has 
raised its head again, and there have been wild scenes 
at Corfu. Face to face with the revival of persecution 
for religious opinions which is now visible in Russia, 
and not in Russia alone, are we forced to acknowledge 
that our century is not so enlightened as we have 
hoped that it was. I remember when I believed that 
in no civilized country to-day could there be found, 
among the educated, a single person who would wish to 
persecute or coerce his fellow-beings solely on account 
of their religious opinions ; but I am obliged to con- 
fess that, without going to Russia or Corfu, I have en- 
countered within the last dozen years individuals not a 
few whose flashing eyes and crimson cheeks, when they 
spoke of a mental attitude in such matters which dif- 
fered from their own, made me realize with a thrill 
that if it were still the day of the stake and the torch 
they would come bringing fagots to the pile with their 
own hands. 

In spite of these survivals, ceremonial martyrdom for 
so-called religion's sake is, we may hope, at an end 
among the civilized nations ; we have only its relics 
left. Corfu has one of these relics, a martyr who is 
sincerely honored — St. Spiridion, or, as he is called in 
loving diminutive, Spiro. Spiro, who died fifteen hun- 
dred years ago, was bishop of a see in Cyprus, I believe. 
He was tortured during the persecution of the Christians 
under Diocletian. His embalmed body was taken to 
Constantinople, and afterwards, in 1489, it was brought 
to Corfu by a man named George Colochieretry. Some 
authorities say that Colochieretry was a monk ; in any 
case, what is certain is that the heirs of this man still 
own the saint — surely a strange piece of property — and 
derive large revenues from him. St. Spiro reposes in a 
small dim chapel of the church which is called by his 



302 



name; his superb silver coffin is lighted by the rays 
from a hanging lamp which is suspended above it. 
When we paid our visit, people in an unbroken stream 
were pressing into this chapel, and kissing the sarcoph- 
agus repeatedly with passionate fervor. The nave, too, 
was thronged ; families were seated on the pavement in 
groups, with an air of having been there all day : proba- 
bly Christmas is one of the seasons set apart for an 
especial pilgrimage to the martyr. Three times a year 
the body is taken from its coffin and borne round the 
esplanade, followed by a long train of Greek clergy, and 
by the public officers of the town ; upon these occasions 
the sick are brought forth and laid where the shadow 
of the saint can pass over them. " Yes, he's out to- 
day, I believe," said a resident, to whom we had men- 
tioned this procession. He spoke in a matter-of-fact 
tone. After seeing it three times a year for twenty 
years, the issuing forth of the old bishop into the 
brilliant sunshine to make a solemn circuit round the 
esplanade did not, I suppose, seem so remarkable to 
him as it seemed to us. There is another saint, a 
woman (her name I have forgotten), who also reposes 
in a silver coffin in one of the Corfu churches. At first 
we supposed that this was Spiro. But the absence 
of worshippers showed us our mistake. This lonely 
witness to the faith was also a martyr ; she suffered de- 
capitation. " They don't think much of her" said the 
same resident. Then, explanatorily, " You see — she has 
no head." This practically minded critic, however, was 
not a native of Corfu. The true Corfiotes are very rev- 
erent, and no doubt they honor their second martyr 
upon her appointed day. But Spiro is the one they 
love. The country people believe that he visits their 
fields once a year to bless their olives and grain, and 
the Corfu sailors are sure that he comes to them, walk- 
ing on the water in the darkness, when a storm is ap- 



303 



proaching. Mr. Tuckerman, in his delightful volume, 
The Greeks of To-Day, says, in connection with this last 
legend, that it is believed by the devout that seaweed 
is often found about the legs of the good bishop in his 
silver coffin, after his return from these marine prome- 
nades. There is something charming in this story, and 
I shall have to hold back my hand to keep myself from 
alluding (and yet I do allude) to a shrine I know at 
Venice ; it is far out on the lagoon, and its name is Our 
Lady of the Seaweed. The last time my gondola passed 
it I saw that by a happy chance the high tide had left 
seaweed twined about it in long, floating wreaths, like 
an offering. 

The name of the national religion of Greece is the 
Orthodox Church of the East, or, more briefly, the Or- 
thodox Church. Western nations call it the Greek 
Church, but they have invented that name themselves. 
The Orthodox Church has rites and ceremonies which 
are striking and sometimes magnificent. I have many 
memories of the churches of Corfu. The temples 
are so numerous that they seem innumerable ; one was 
always coming upon a fresh one ; sometimes there is 
only a facade visible, and occasionally nothing but a 
door, the church being behind, masked by other build- 
ings. My impressions are of a series of magnified 
jewel-boxes. There was not much daylight ; no matter 
how radiant the sunshine outside, within all was richly 
dim, owing to the dark tints of the stained glass. The 
ornamentation was never paltry or tawdry. The soft 
light from the wax candles drew dull gleams from the 
singular metal -incrusted pictures. These pictures, or 
icons, are placed in large numbers along the walls and 
upon the screen which divides the nave from the apse. 
They are generally representations of the Madonna and 
Child in repousse - work of silver, silvered copper, or 
a;ilt. Often the face and hands of the Madonna are 



304 



painted on panel; in that case the portrait rises from 
metal shoulders, and the head is surrounded by metal 
hair. The painting is always of the stiff Byzantine 
school, following an ancient model, for any other style 
would be considered irreverent, and nothing can ex- 
ceed the strange effect produced by these long-eyed, 
small-mouthed, rigid, sourly sweet virgin faces coming 
out from their silver - gilt necks, while below, painted 
taper fingers of unearthly length encircle a silver Child, 
who in His turn has a countenance of panel, often all 
out of drawing, but hauntingly sweet. These curious 
pictures have great dignity. The churches have no 
seats. I generally took my stand in one of the pew-like 
stalls which project from the wall, and here, unobserved, 
I could watch the people coming in and kissing the 
icons. This adoration, commemoration, reverence, or 
whatever the proper word for it may be, is much more 
conspicuous in the Greek places of worship than it is 
in Roman Catholic churches. Those who come in make 
the round of the walls, kissing every picture, and they 
do it fervently, not formally. The service is chanted 
by the priests very rapidly in a peculiar kind of inton- 
ing. The Corfu priests did not look as if they were 
learned men, but their faces have a natural and humane 
expression which is agreeable. In the street, with their 
flowing robes, long hair and beards, and high black 
caps, they are striking figures. The parish priest must 
be a married man, and he does not live apart from his 
people, but closely mingles with them upon all occa- 
sions. He is the papas, or pope, as it is translated, and 
a lover of Tourguenieff who meets a pope for the first 
time at Corfu is haunted anew by those masterpieces 
of the great Russian — the village tales across whose 
pages the pope and the popess come and go, and seem, 
to American readers, such strange figures. 

In the suburb of Castrades is the oldest church of 



307 



the island. It is dedicated to St. Jason, the kinsman 
of St. Paul. St. Jason's appeared to be deserted. 
Here, as elsewhere, it is not the church most interest- 
ing from the historical point of view which is the fa- 
vorite of the people, or which they find, apparently, 
the most friendly. But when I paid my visit, there 
were so many vines and flowers outside, and such a 
blue sky above, that the little Byzantine temple had a 
cheerful, irresponsible air, as if it were saying* : •• It's not 
my fault that people won't come here. But if they 
won't, I'm not unhappy about it ; the sunshine, the 
vines, and I — we do very well together." The interior 
was bare, flooded also with white daylight — so white 
that one blinked. And in this whiteness my mind sud- 
denly returned to Hellas. For Hellas had been for- 
gotton for the moment, owing to the haunting icons in 
the dark churches of the town. Those silver-incrusted 
images had brought up a vision of the uncounted mill- 
ions to-day in Turkey, Greece, and Russia who bow be- 
fore them, the Christians of whom we know and think 
comparatively so little. But now all these Eastern 
people vanished as silently as they had come, and the 
past returned — the past, whose spell summons us to 
Greece. For conspicuous in the white daylight of St. 
Jason's were three antique columns, which, with other 
sculptured fragments set in the walls, had been taken 
from an earlier pagan temple to build this later church. 
And the spell does not break again in this part of the 
island. Not far from St. Jason's is the tomb of Mene- 
krates. This monument was discovered in 1843, when 
one of the Venetian forts was demolished. Beneath 
the foundations the workmen came upon funeral vases, 
and upon digging deeper an ancient Greek cemetery 
was uncovered, with many graves, various relics, and 
this tomb. It is circular, formed of large blocks of 
stone closely joined without cement, and at present one 



308 



stands and looks down upon it, as though it were in a 
roofless cellar. It bears round its low dome a metrical 
inscription in Greek, to the effect that Menekrates, who 
was the representative at Corcyra (the old name for 
Corfu) of his native town Eanthus, lost his life acci- 
dentally by drowning; that this was a great sorrow to 
the community, for he was a friend of the people ; that 
his brother came from Eanthus, and, with the aid of 
the Corcyreans, erected the monument. There is some- 
thing impressive to us in this simple memorial of grief 
set up before the days of JEschylus, before the battle 
of Marathon — the commemoration of a family sorrow 
in Corfu two thousand five hundred years ago. The 
following is a Latin translation of the inscription : 

" Tlasiadis meraor ecce Menecrates hoc monumentum, 
Ortum (Eantheus, populus statuebat at illi, 
Quippe benignus erat populo patronus, in alto 
Sed periit ponto, totam et dolor obruit urbem. 
Praximenes autem patriis hue venit ab oris 
Cum populo et fratris monumentum hoc struxit adempti." 

Two thousand five hundred years ago ! That is far 
back. But it is not the oldest date " in the world." 
Americans are accused of cherishing an inordinate love 
for the superlative — the longest river, the highest moun- 
tain, the deepest mine in the world, the largest diamond 
in the world ; there must always be that tag " in the 
world" to interest us. When ancient objects are in 
question we are said to rush from one to the next, ap- 
plying our sole test ; and we drop at any time a tomb 
or a temple, no matter how beautiful, if there comes 
a rumor that another has been discovered a little far- 
ther on which is thought to be a trifle more venerable. 
Thus they chaff us — pilgrims from a land where Nature 
herself works in superlatives, and where there is no 
antiquity at all. In Italy our mania, exercising itself 



309 



upon smaller objects than temples, brings us nearer 
the comprehension (or non-comprehension) of the con- 
temptuous natives. "What hideous" (she called it 
hee-dee us) "things you do buy!" I heard an Italian 
lady exclaim with conviction some years ago, as she 
happened to meet three of her American acquaintances 
returning from a hunt through the antiquity-shops of 
Naples, loaded with a battered lamp, a square of moth- 
eaten tapestry with an indecipherable inscription, and a 
nondescript broken animal in bronze, without head, tail, 
or legs, who might have been intended for a dragon, 
or possibly for a cow. After a while we pass this stage 
of antiquity-shops. But we never pass the Etruscans, 
or, rather, I should speak for myself, and say that I 
never passed them ; I was perpetually haunted by them. 
There was one road in particular, a lonely track which 
led from Bellosguardo (at Florence) up a steep hill, and 
I was forever climbing this stony ascent because, for- 
sooth, it was set down on an Italian map as "the old 
Etruscan way between Fiesole and Volterra," two strong- 
holds of this mysterious people. I was sure that there 
were tombs with strangely painted walls close at hand, 
and when there was no one in sight I made furtive 
archaeological pokes with my parasol. In Italy an Etrus- 
can tomb seems the oldest thing " in the world." And 
at Corfu the unearthed Greek cemetery became doubly 
interesting when I learned that among the relics dis- 
covered there was a lioness couchant, concerning which 
the highest authorities have said, " After the lions of 
the gates of Mycenae, there is no Greek sculpture older 
than this." (The lioness is now in the vestibule of the 
palace in the esplanade.) This was exciting, for My- 
cenae is a name to conjure with still, in spite of the re- 
fusal of the learned to accept, in all their extent, Dr. 
Schliemann's splendidly romantic theories and dreams. 
But when one goes on to Egypt, to have searched at 



310 



all for that enticing " oldest " in Greece appears to 
have been a mistake. For what is b.c. 1000, which 
the German authorities say is an approximate date for 
the Mycenae relics — what is that compared with King 
Menes of the Nile, with his b.c. 4400 according to 
Brugsch-Bey, and b.c. 5000 according to Mariette ? 
And there are rumors of civilized times far older. But 
if we can bring ourselves to cease our chase after age 
and turn to beauty, then it is not in the sands of Egypt 
that we must dig. For beauty we must come to the 
clear light country of the gods. 

But leaving history, some of us suffer greatly nowa- 
days from mental dislocations of another sort. The My- 
cenae lions and the grim lioness of Corfu are ascribed 
with a calmness which seems brutal to " pre - Homeric 
times." Surely there were no pre -Homeric times ex- 
cept chaos. Surely those were the first days of the 
world when all the men were sure-footed, and all the 
women white -armed ; when the sea was hollow (it has 
remained that to this day), and when the heavenly pow- 
ers interested themselves in human affairs upon the 
slightest occasion. Leave us our faith in them. It can 
be preserved, if you like, in the purely poetical com- 
partment of the mind. For there are all sorts of com- 
partments : I have met a learned geologist who turned 
pale when a mirror was broken by accident in his 
house ; I know a disciple of Darwin who always dep- 
recates instantly any reference to his good health, lest 
in some mysterious way it should attract ill-luck. It 
seems to me, therefore, that the dear belief that Ho- 
mer's heroes began the world may coexist even with 
the bicycle. (Not that I myself have much knowl- 
edge of this excellent vehicle. But its tandem wheels, 
swift and business-like, personify the spirit of the age.) 

At Corfu one is over one's head in the Odyssey. 
" The island is not what it has been," said the English 




illllii;;::: ; V' ;:; :. .; :^>fM: 



THE ISLET CALLED " THE SHIP OE ULYSSES 



313 



lady of the Indian Mail. It is not, indeed ! She re- 
ferred to the days of the Lords High. But the rest of 
us refer to Nausicaa ; for Corfu is the Scheria of the 
Odyssey, the home of King Alcinous. Not far beyond 
the tomb of Menekrates, at the point called Canone, we 
have a view of a deep bay. On the opposite shore of 
this bay enters the stream upon whose bank Ulysses 
first met the delightful little maiden — " the beautiful 
stream of the river, where were the pools unfailing, and 
clear and abundant water." And also (but this is a 
work of supererogation, like feminine testimony in a 
court of justice) we have a view of the Phseacian ship 
which was turned into stone by Neptune : " Neptune 
s'en approcha, et, le frappant du plat de la main, le 
changea en un rocher qu'il enracina dans le sol," as my 
copy of the Odyssey, which happens rather absurdly to 
be a French one, translates the passage. The ship, 
therefore, is now an island ; its deck is a chapel ; its 
masts are trees. Of late the belief that Corfu is the 
Scheria of the Odyssey has been attacked. Appended 
to the musical translation of the episode of Nausicaa, 
which was published in 1890, there is the folio wing- 
note : "It will be seen that the writer declines to accept 
the identification of Corcyra, the modern Corfu, with 
Scheria. In this skepticism he is emboldened by the 
protecting shield of the Ajax among English-speaking 
Hellenists. See Jebb's Homer." It is not possible to 
contest a point with Ajax. But any one who has seen 
the gardens and groves of this lovely isle, who has 
watched the crystalline water dash against the rocks at 
Palaeokastrizza, who has strolled down the hill-side at 
Pelleka, or floated in a skiff off the coast at Ipso — any 
such person will say that Corfu is at least an ideal 
home for the charming girl who played ball and washed 
the clothes on the shore, king's daughter though she was. 
To quote the translation : 



314 



"Father dear, would you make ready for me a wagon, a high one, 
Strong in the wheels, that I may cany our beautiful garments 
... to be washed in the river?" 

One wishes that this primitive princess could have had an- 
other name. Nausicaa ; no matter how one pronounces 
the syllables, they are not melodious. Why could she 
not have been Aglaia, Daphne, or Artemidora ? Stand- 
ing at Canone and looking across at her shore, one is 
vexed anew that she should have given her heart, or 
even her fancy, to Ulysses — a man who was always eat- 
ing. Instead of Ulysses, we should say Odysseus, no 
doubt. That may pass. But the sentimental, inaccu- 
rate persons who read Homer in English (or French) 
will not so easily consent to Alkinoos. No ; Alcinous 
(which reminds them vaguely of halcyon) will remain 
in their minds as the name of the king who lived " far 
removed from the trafficking nations," among his blos- 
soming gardens in the billowy sea; and to this faith 
will they cling. The clinging evidently exists at Corfu. 
One of the most comical sights there is a modern " de- 
tached villa," of course English, which might have come 
from Cheltenham ; it is planted close to the glaring 
road, and over its dusty gate is inscribed imperturba- 
bly, " Alcinous Lodge." 

One wonders whether the princesses of to-day (who 
no longer dry clothes upon the shore) amuse their lei- 
sure hours with Homer's recitals concerning their pred- 
ecessors ? One of them, at any rate, has chosen Corfu 
as a place of sojourn ; the Empress of Austria, after 
paying many visits to the island, has now built for her- 
self a country residence, or villino, at a distance from 
the town, not far from Nausicaa's stream. The house 
is surrounded by gardens, and from the terrace there is 
a magnificent view in all directions ; here she enjoys 
the solitude which she is said to love, and the Corfiotes 



317 



see only the coming and going of her yacht. I don't 
know why there should be something so delightful, to 
one mind at least, in the selection of this distant Greek 
island as the resting-place of a queen, who takes the 
long journey down the Adriatic year after year to reach 
her retreat. The preference is perhaps due simply to 
fondness for a sea-voyage, and to the fact that a yacht 
lying at Trieste lies practically at Vienna's door. Lov- 
ers of Corfu, however, will not be turned aside by any 
of these reasons; they will continue to believe that 
the choice is made for beauty's sake ; they will extol 
this perfect appreciation ; they will praise this modern 
Nausicaa; they will purchase her portrait in photo- 
graphed copies. When they have one of these repre- 
sentations, they can note with satisfaction the accord- 
ance between its outlines and a taste in islands which 
is surely the best in the world. 

The casino of the Empress is not the only royal resi- 
dence at Corfu. About a mile from the town is the 
country-house called " Mon Repos," the property of 
the King of Greece. King George and Queen Olga, 
with their children, have frequently spent summers 
here. The mansion is ordinary as regards its archi- 
tecture — it was built by one of the Lords High. The 
situation is altogether admirable, with a view of the 
harbor and town. But the especial loveliness of Mon 
Repos is to be found in its gardens ; their foliage is 
tropical, with superb magnolias, palms, bananas, aloes, 
and orange and lemon trees. There are flowers of all 
kinds, with roses clambering everywhere, and blossom- 
ing vines. The royal family who rule, or rather pre- 
side over, the kingdom of the Hellenes are much re- 
spected and beloved at Corfu. The King, who was 
Prince William of Denmark — the brother of the Czar- 
ina of Russia and of the Princess of Wales — took the 
name of George when he ascended the throne in 1863. 



318 



He was elected by the National Assembly. Now that 
he has been reigning nearly thirty years, and has a 
grandson as well as a son to succeed him, it is amusing 
to turn back to the original candidates and the votes ; 
for it was an election (within certain limits) by the 
people, and all sorts of tastes were represented. Prince 
Alfred of England, the Duke of Edinburgh, was at the 
head of the list ; but as it had been stipulated that no 
member of the reigning families of England, France, or 
Russia should have the crown, his name was struck off. 
There were votes for Prince Jerome Napoleon. There 
were votes for the Prince Imperial. There were even 
votes for " A Republic." But Greece, as she stands, is 
as near a republic as a country with a sovereign can be. 
Suffrage is universal ; there is no aristocracy ; there are 
no hereditary titles, no entailed estates ; the liberty of 
the press is untrammelled; education is free. Every- 
where the people are ardently patriotic ; they are ac- 
tively, and one may say almost dangerously, interested 
in everything that pertains to the political condition of 
their country. This interest is quickened by their 
acute intellects. I have never seen faces more sharply 
intelligent than those of the Greek men of to-day. I 
speak of men who have had some advantages in the 
way of education. But as all are intensely eager to 
obtain these advantages, and as schools are now numer- 
ous, education to a certain extent is widely diffused. 
The men are, as a general rule, handsome. But they 
are not in the least after the model of the Greek god, 
as he exists in art and fiction. This model has an ideal 
height and strength, massive shoulders, a statuesque 
head with closely curling hair, and an unruffled repose. 
The actual Greek possesses a meagre frame, thin face, 
with high cheek-bones, a dry, dark complexion, straight 
hair, small eyes, and as for repose, he has never heard 
of it; he is overwhelmingly, never-endingly restless. 




KING GEORGE OP GREECE 



321 



With this enumeration my statement that he is hand- 
some may not appear to accord. Nevertheless, he is a 
good-looking fellow ; his spare form is often tall, the 
quickly turning eyes are wonderfully brilliant, the dark 
face is lighted by the gleam of white teeth, the gait is 
very graceful, the step light. The Albanian costume, 
which was adopted after the revolution as the national 
dress for the whole country, is amazing. We have all 
seen it in paintings and photographs, where it is merely 
picturesque. But when you meet it in the streets every 
day, when you see the wearer of it engaged in cooking 
his dinner, in cleaning fish, in driving a cart, in carry- 
ing a hod, or hanging out clothes on a line, then it be- 
comes perfectly fantastic. The climax of my own im- 
pressions about it was reached, I think, a little later, at 
Athens, when I beheld the guards walking their beats 
before the King's palace, and before the simple house 
of the Crown Prince opposite ; they are soldiers of the 
regular army, and they held their muskets with mili- 
tary precision as they marched to and fro, attired in 
ordinary overcoats (it happened to be a rainy day) over 
the puffed-out white skirts of a ballet-dancer. Robert 
Louis Stevenson, in one of his recent letters from the 
South Seas, writes that " the mind of the female mis- 
sionary " (British) " tends to be constantly busied about 
dress ; she can be taught with extreme difficulty to 
think any costume decent but that to which she grew 
accustomed on Clapham Common, and, to gratify this 
prejudice, the native is put to useless expense." And 
here it occurs to me that it is high time to explore this 
Clapham Common. We go as worshippers to Shake- 
speare's Avon ; we go to the land of Scott and Burns ; 
we know the " stripling Thames at Bablockhithe," where 
" the punt's rope chops round " ; but to Clapham Com- 
mon we make, I think, no pilgrimages, although it has 
as clearly marked a place in English literature as the 
21 



322 



Land of Beulah or the Slough of Despond. I fancy 
that Americans are not so closely tied to a fixed stand- 
ard in dress as are the missionaries who excite Mr. Ste- 
venson's wrath. A half of our population seeks its 
ideal in Paris, but as a whole we are easy-going. We 
accept the Chinese attire in our streets without demur ; 
the lack of attire of the Sioux does not disconcert us ; 
when abroad we admire impartially the Egyptian gown 
and the Cossack uniform, and we adorn ourselves liber- 
ally with the fez. But the Greek costume makes us 
pause ; it seems a bravado in whimsicality. One can 
describe it in detail : one can say that it consists of a 
cap with a long tassel, a full white shirt, an embroid- 
ered jacket with open sleeves, a tight girdle, the white 
kilt or fustanella, long leggings with bright-colored gar- 
ters, and, usually, shoes with turned-up toes. The enu- 
meration, however, does not do away with the one gen- 
eral impression of men striding about in short white 
ballet petticoats. 

In spite of their skirts, the Greeks have as martial an 
air as possible ; an old Greek who is vain, and they 
are all vain, is even a fierce-looking figure. All the 
men have small waists, and are proud of them ; their 
belts are drawn as tightly as those of young girls in 
other countries. From this girdle, or from the embroid- 
ered pouch below it, comes a gleam which means prob- 
ably a pistol, though sometimes it is only the long, 
narrow inkhorn of brass or silver. Besides the Al- 
banian, there are other costumes. One, which is fre- 
quently seen, is partly Turkish, with baggy trousers. 
The Greek men are vain, and with cause ; if the women 
are vain, it must be without it ; we did not see a single 
handsome face among them. It was not merely that 
we failed to find the beautiful low forehead, full temple, 
straight nose, and small head of classic days ; we could 
not discover any marked type, good or bad ; the feat- 




QUEEN OLGA OF GREECE 



325 



tires were those that pass unnoticed everywhere. I 
speak, of course, generally, and from a superficial ob- 
servation, for I saw only the people one meets in the 
streets, in the churches, in the fields, olive groves, 
and vineyards, on the steamers, and at the house doors. 
But after noting this population for two weeks and 
more, the result remained the same — the men who came 
under our notice were handsome, and the women were 
not. The dress of the women varies greatly. The 
Albanian costume, which ranks with the fnstanellas or 
petticoats of the men, is as flat, narrow, and elongated 
as the latter are short and protruding. It consists of a 
sheath-like skirt of a woollen material, and over this a 
long, narrow white coat, which sometimes has black 
sleeves ; the head is wrapped in loose folds of white. 
This was the attire worn by the girls who were at work 
in the fields. On Christmas Day I met a number of 
Corfiote women walking about the esplanade arrayed 
in light-colored dresses, with large aprons of white 
lace or white muslin, and upon their heads white veils 
with bunches of artificial flowers ; in addition, they 
wore so many necklaces, pins, clasps, buckles, rings, 
lockets, bracelets, pendants, and other adornments of 
silver and silver-gilt that they clanked as they walked. 
This was a gala costume of some sort. We did not 
see it again. 

The island of Corfu is about forty miles long. Its 
breadth in the widest part is twenty miles. The Eng- 
lish, who have a genius for road-making which is al- 
most equal to that of the Romans, have left excellent 
highways behind them ; it is easy, therefore, to cross the 
island from end to end. In arranging such an ex- 
pedition, that exhaustive dialogue about buying a car- 
riage, which (to one's bewilderment) occupies by far the 
most important place in all the Manuals of Conversa- 
tion for the Traveller, might at last be of some service. 



326 



" Have you a carriage ?" it begins (in six languages). 

" Yes ; I have berlins, vis-a-vis, gigs, calashes, and 
cabriolets." (What vehicles are these?) 

" Are the axle-trees, the nave, the spokes, the tires, 
the felloes, and the splinter-bars in good condition ?" 
it goes on in its painstaking polyglot. Possibly one 
might be called upon to purchase splinter-bars in a 
remote island of the Ionian Sea. 

Seated, then, in a berlin, or perhaps in a calash, one 
goes out at least to visit the olive groves, if not to 
cross the island. These groves are not the ranks of 
severely pruned, almost maimed, trees which greet the 
traveller in parts of southern Europe — groves without 
shade, without luxuriance ; viewed from a distance, their 
gray-green foilage forms a characteristic part of the land- 
scape, but at close quarters they have but one expression 
— namely, how many coins are to be squeezed out of 
each poor tree, whose every bud appears to have been 
counted. At Corfu one strolls through miles of wood 
whose foliage is magnificent ; it is possible to lounge in 
the shade, for there is shade, and to draw a free breath. 
No doubt the Corfiotes keep guard over their leafy 
domain ; but the occasional visitor, at least, is not 
harassed by warnings to trespassers set up everywhere, 
by children following him with suspicious eyes, by 
patrols, dogs, stone walls, and sometimes by stones of 
another kind which do not stay in the walls, but come 
flying through the air to teach him to keep his distance. 
It is difficult, probably, for people from the New World 
to look upon a forest as something sacred, guarded, 
private ; we have taken our pleasure " in the woods " 
all our lives whenever we have felt so inclined ; we do 
not intend to do any harm there, but we do wish to be 
free. In the olive groves of Corfu the wish can be 
gratified. Their aisles are wonderful in every respect : 
in the size of the trees (some of them are sixty feet 



329 



high), in the picturesque shapes of the gnarled trunks, 
in the extent of the long vistas where the light has the 
color which some of us know at home — that silvery- 
green under the great live-oaks at the South, when 
their branches are veiled in the long moss. 

But Athens was before us ; we must leave the groves ; 
we must leave Nausicaa's shore. We did so at last in 
the wake of a departing storm. For several days the 
wind had been tempestuous. The signal, which is dis- 
played from the Citadel, had become a riddle ; it is an 
arrangement of flags by day and of lanterns by night, 
and no two of us ever deciphered it alike. If the order 
was thus and so, it meant that something belonging to 
the Austrian-Lloyd company was in sight ; if so and 
thus, it meant the Florio line ; if neither of these, then 
it might possibly be our boat — that is, the Greek coast- 
ing steamer which we had decided to take because we 
had been told that it was the best. I have never fath- 
omed the mystery as to why our informant told us this. 
If he had been a Greek, it would have been at least a 
patriotic misrepresentation. We were dismayed when 
we reached the rough tub. But, after all, in one sense 
she was the best, for she dawdled in and out among the 
islands, never in the least hurry, and stopping to gossip 
with them all ; this gave us a good chance to see them, 
if it gave us nothing else. I have said " when we 
reached her," for there were several false starts. We 
rose in the morning in a mood of regretful good-bye, 
expecting to be far away at night. And at night, with 
our good-bye on our hands, we were still in our hotel. 
But it is only fair to add that with its garlands of flow- 
ers and myrtle for the Christmas season ; with its queer 
assemblage of Levantines in the dining-room ; with its 
bath-room in the depths of the earth, to which one de- 
scended by stairway leading down underground ; with 
its group of petticoated Greeks in the hall, and, in its 



330 



rooms of honor above, a young Austrian princess of 
historic name and extraordinary beauty — with all this, 
and its cheerful lies, its smiling, gay-hearted irresponsi- 
bility, the Corfu inn was an entertaining place. The 
Greek steamer came at last. She had been driven out 
of her course by the gale, so said the pirate, ostensibly 
retired from business, who superintended the embarka- 
tions from the hotel. This lithe freebooter had pre- 
sented himself at frequent intervals during the baffling 
days when we watched the signal, and he always en- 
tered without knocking. He could not grasp the idea, 
probably, that ceremonies would be required by persons 
who intended to sail by the coaster. When we reached 
this bark ourselves, later, we forgave him— a little. Her 
deck was the most democratic place I have ever seen. 
We think that we approve of equality in the United 
States. But the Greeks carry their approval further 
than we do. On this deck there were no reserved por- 
tions, no prohibitions ; the persons who had paid for a 
first-class ticket had the same rights as those which 
were accorded to the steerage travellers, and no more ; 
and as the latter were numerous, they obtained by far 
the larger share, eating the provisions which they had 
brought with them, sleeping on their coverlids, playing 
games, and smoking in the best places. There was no 
system, and little discipline ; the sailors came up and 
washed the deck (a process which was very necessary) 
whenever and however they pleased, and we had to 
jump for our lives and mount a bench to escape the 
stream from the hose, as it suddenly appeared without 
warning from an unlooked-for quarter. The passengers, 
who came on board at various points during a cruise of 
several days, brought with them light personal luggage, 
which consisted of hens tied together by the legs, a 
live sheep, kitchen utensils, and bedding, all of which 
they placed everywhere and anywhere, according to 



333 



their pleasure. A Greek dressed iu the full national 
costume accompanied us all the way to Missolonghi so 
closely that he was closer than a brother; save when 
we were locked in our small sleeping-cabins below (the 
one extra possession which a first-class ticket bestows), 
we were literally elbow to elbow with him. And his 
elbows were a weapon, like the closed umbrella held 
under the arm in a crowded street — that pleasant habit 
of persons who are not Greeks. The Greek elbow was 
clothed in a handsome sleeve covered with gold em- 
broidery, for our friend was a dandy of dandies. His 
petticoats and his shirt were of fine linen, snowy in its 
whiteness ; his small waist was encircled by a magnifi- 
cent Syrian scarf; his cream-colored leggings were spot- 
less ; and his conspicuous garters new and brilliantly 
scarlet. He was an athletic young man of thirty, his 
good looks marred only by his over-eager eyes and his 
restlessness. It was his back which he presented to us, 
for his attention was given entirely to a party of his 
own friends, men and women. He talked to them ; he 
read aloud to them from a small newspaper (they all 
had newspapers, and read them often) ; he stood up 
and argued ; he grew excited and harangued ; then he 
sat down, his inflated skirts puffing out over his chair, 
and went on with his argument, if argument it was, un- 
til, worn out by the hours of his eloquence, some of 
his companions fell asleep where they sat. His meals 
were astonishingly small. As everything went on under 
our eyes, we saw what they all ate, and it was unmis- 
takable testimony to the Greek frugality. Our compan- 
ion had brought with him from Corfu, by way of pro- 
visions for several days, a loaf of bread about as large 
as three muffins in one, a vial containing capers, a grape- 
leaf folded into a cornucopia and filled with olives, and 
a pint bottle of the light wine of the country. The 
only addition which he made to this store was a salted 



334 



fish about four inches long, which he purchased daily 
from the steward. There was always a discussion be- 
fore he went in search of this morsel, which represented, 
I suppose, the roast meat of his dinner, and when he 
returned after a long absence, bearing it triumphantly 
on the palm of his hand, it was passed from one to the 
next, turned over, inspected, and measured by each 
member of the group, amid the most animated, eager 
discussion. When comment was at last exhausted, the 
superb orator seated himself (always with his chair 
against our knees), and placed before him, on a news- 
paper spread over the bench, his precious fishlette divid- 
ed into small slices, with a few capers and olives ar- 
ranged in as many wee heaps as there were portions of 
fish, so that all should come out even. Then, with the 
diminutive loaf of bread by his side and the bottle of 
wine at his feet, he began his repast, using the point of 
his pocketknife as a fork, eating slowly and meditative- 
ly, and intently watched by all his friends, who sat in 
silence, following with their eyes each mouthful on its 
way from the newspaper to his lips. They had previ- 
ously made their own repasts in the same meagre fash- 
ion, but perhaps they derived some small additional 
nourishment from watching the mastication of their 
friend. When his fish had disappeared, accompanied 
by one slender little slice of bread, our neighbor lifted 
the wine-bottle, and gave himself a swallow of wine ; 
then, after a pause of a minute or two, another. This 
was all. The bottle was recorked, and with the remain- 
ing provisions put carefully away. All foreign residents 
in Greece, whether they like the people or dislike them, 
agree in pronouncing them extraordinarily abstemious. 
Drunkenness hardly exists among them. 

At one of the islands a prisoner was brought on 
board by two policemen. He was a slender youth — 
an apprentice to a mason, probably, for his poor clothes 




ALBANIAN MALE COSTUME 



337 



were stained with mortar and lime. He held himself 
stiffly erect, making a determined effort to present a 
brave countenance to the world. He was led to a 
place in the centre of the deck, and then one of his 
guardians departed, leaving the second in charge. The 
steamer lay in the harbor for an hour or more, and four 
times skiffs put out from the shore, each bringing two 
or three young men — or, rather, boys — who came up 
the ladder furtively. Reaching the deck, they edged 
their way along, first to the right, then to the left, until 
they perceived their comrade. Even then they did 
not approach him directly ; they assumed an air of 
indifference, and walked about a little among the other 
passengers. But after a while, one by one, they came 
to him, and, taking bread from under their jackets, they 
put it hastily and silently into his pockets, the police- 
man watching them, but not interfering. Then, moving 
off quickly, they disappeared down the ladder in the 
same stealthy way, and returned to the shore. Through 
all their manoeuvres the prisoner did not once look at 
them ; he kept his eyes fixed upon a distant point in 
the bay, as though there was something out there 
which he was obliged to watch without an instant's 
cessation. All his pockets meanwhile, and the space 
under his jacket, grew so full that he was swathed in 
bread. Finally came the whistle, and the steamer 
started. Then, as the island began to recede, the set 
young face quivered, and the arm in its ragged sleeve 
went up to cover the eyes — a touching gesture, because 
it is the child's when in trouble, the instinctive move- 
ment of the grief-stricken little boy. 

Ten miles south of Corfu one meets the second of 
the Ionian Islands, Paxo, with the tiny, severe Anti- 
Paxo lying off its southern point, like a summary period 
set to any romantic legend which the larger isle may 
wish to tell. As it happens, the legend is a striking 
22 



338 



one, and we all know it without going to Paxo. But 
it is impossible to pass the actual scene without re- 
lating it once more, and, for the telling, no modern 
words can possibly approach those of the old anno- 
tator. " Here at the coast of Paxo, about the time that 
our Lord suffered His most bitter Passion, certain per- 
sons sailing from Italy at night heard a voice calling 
aloud : ' Thamus V '■ Thamus V Who, giving ear to the 
cry (for he was the pilot of the ship), was bidden when 
he came near to Portus Pelodes" (the Bay of Butrinto) 
" to tell that the great god Pan was dead. Which he, 
doubting to do, yet when he came to Portus Pelodes 
there was such a calm of wind that the ship stood still 
in the sea, unmoored, and he was forced to cry aloud 
that Pan was dead. Whereupon there were such pit- 
eous outcries and dreadful shrieking as hath not been 
the like. By the which Pan, of some is understood 
the great Sathanas, whose kingdom was at that time 
by Christ conquered ; for at that moment all oracles 
surceased, and enchanted spirits, that were wont to 
delude the people, henceforth held their peace." 

Those of us who read Milton's Ode on Christinas 
Eve will recall his allusion to this Paxo legend : 

" The lonely mountains o'er, 
And the enchanted shore, 

A voice of weeping heard, and loud lament ; 
From haunted spring and dale, 
Edged with poplar pale, 

The parting Genius is with sighing sent." 

Anti-Paxo is one of the oddest spots I have seen. 
It is a small, bare, stone plain, elevated but slightly 
above the surface of the water. The rock is of a tawny 
hue, and there is a queer odor of asphaltum. At cer- 
tain seasons of the year it is covered so thickly with 
quail that " you could not put a paper-cutter between 




ALBANIAN FEMALE COSTUME 



341 



them." There were no quail when we passed the rock. 
The sun shone on the flat surface, bringing; out its rich 
tint against the azure of the sea, and in its strange deso- 
lation it looked like a picture which might have been 
painted by a man of genius who had gone mad in his 
passion for color. Though I mention the Ionian group 
only, it must not be supposed that there were no other 
islands. Those of us who like to turn over maps, to 
search out routes though we may never follow them 
except on paper — innocent stay-at-home geographers 
of this sort have supposed that it was a simple matter 
to learn the names of the islands which one meets in 
any well-known track across well-known seas. This is 
a mistake. From Corfu to Patras, and, later, on the 
way to Egypt and Syria, and back through the Strait 
of Messina to Genoa, I saw many islands — it seemed 
to me that they could have been counted by hundreds 
— which are not indicated in the ordinary guide-books, 
and whose names no one on the steamers appeared to 
know, not even the captains. The captains, the pilots, 
and all the officers were of course aware of the exact 
position in the sea of each one ; that was part of their 
business. But as to names, these mariners, whether 
Englishmen, Germans, Italians, Turks, or Greeks (and 
we sailed with all), appeared to share the common 
opinion that they had none ; their manner was that 
they deserved none. But I have never met a steamer 
captain who felt anything but profound contempt for 
small islands ; he appears to regard them simply as 
interruptions — as some Ohio farmers of my acquaint- 
ance regard the occasional single tree in their broad, 
level fields. 

Abreast of Paxo, on the mainland, is the small village 
of Parga. The place has its own tragic history con- 
nected with its cession to the Turks in 1815. But I 
am afraid that its principal association in my mind is 



342 



the frivolous one of a roaring chorus, " Robbers all at 
Parga !" This song may be as much of a libel as that 
bold ballad concerning the beautiful town at the eastern 
end of Lake Erie ; the ladies of that place are not in 
the habit of " coming out to-night, to dance by the light 
of the moon," and in the same way there may never 
have been any robbers worth speaking of at Parga. It 
is Hobhouse who tells the story. " In the evening prep- 
arations were made for feeding our Albanians. After 
eating, they began to dance round the fire to their own 
singing with an astonishing energy. One of their songs 
begins, ' When we set out from Parga, there were sixty 
of us.' Then comes the chorus : ' Robbers all at Parga ! 
Robbers all at Parga !' As they roared out this stave, 
they whirled round the fire, dropped to and rebounded 
from their knees, and again whirled round in a wild 
circle, repeating it at the top of their voices : 

" ' Robbers all at Parga ! 
Robbers all at Parga !' " 

At Parga we met the Byronic legend, which from 
this point hangs over the whole Ionian Sea. Parga is 
not far from the castle of Suli, and with the word " Su- 
liote" we are launched aloft into the resplendent realm 
of Byron's poetry, which seems as beautiful and appari- 
tion-like as the Oberland peaks viewed from Berne — 
shining cliffs, so celestially and impossibly fair, far up 
in the sky. (We may note, however, in passing, that 
these lofty limits are, after all, as real as a barn-yard, 
or as an afternoon sewing society.) The country near 
Parga is described at length in the second canto of 
« Childe Harold." 

The third island of the Ionian group is Santa Maura, 
the Leucadia of the ancients. It looks like a chain of 
mountains set in the sea. Here there are earthquakes, 
as Lady Mary Wortley Montagu would have expressed 




GALA COSTUME, CORFU 



345 



it. The story is that at Santa Maura and at Zante there 
is a severe shock once in twenty years, and a " small 
roll" twice in every three months. It is at least true 
that slight earthquakes are not uncommon, and that the 
houses are built to resist them, with strong beams cross- 
ing from side to side to hold the walls together, so that 
the interiors look like the cabins of a ship. The roll- 
ing motion, when it comes, must make this resemblance 
very vivid. The impression of Santa Maura which re- 
mains in my own mind, however, does not concern it- 
self with earthquakes, unless, indeed, one means moral 
ones. I see a long, lofty promontory ending in a sil- 
very headland. I see it flushed with the rose-tints of 
sunset, high above a violet sea. Of course I was look- 
ing for it ; every one looks for the rock from which 
dark Sappho flung herself in her despair. But even 
without Sappho it is a striking cliff ; it rises perpen- 
dicularly from deep water, and it is so white that one 
fancies that it must be visible even upon the darkest 
night. All day its towering opaline crest serves as a 
beacon from afar. The temple of Apollo which once 
crowned its summit can still be traced in sculptured 
fragments, though there are no marble columns like those 
that gleam across the waves from Sunium. ' : Leucadia's 
far-projecting rock of woe," Byron calls it. But it does 
not look woful. One fancies that exaltation must flood 
the soul of the human creature who springs to meet 
Death from such a place. The memory of the Greek 
poetess has nothing to do with these reflections, unless 
one refers to the ladies who are announced to the pub- 
lic from time to time as " the modern Sappho," in 
which case one might suggest to them the excellent 
facilities the rock affords. As to the greatest of wom- 
en of letters, I do not know that there is anything more 
to say about her in the language of the United States. 
If she had flourished and perished last year, M. Jules 



346 



Lemaitre (her name would have been Leocadie, probably) 
would doubtless have written an article about her : " The 
career, literary and other, of Mademoiselle Leocadie, a 
ete des plus distinguees, bien qu'un peu tapageuse." 

As the steamer crossed from Santa Maura to Cepha- 
lonia we had a clear view of little Ithaca, the Ithaca 
which Ulysses loved, " not because it was broad, but 
because it was his own." Except Paxo, Ithaca is the 
smallest of the sister islands. The guide-book declares 
" No steamer touches at Ithaca, but there is frequent 
communication by caique." This announcement, like 
others from the same authority, is false, though it may 
have been true thirty years ago. The very steamer that 
carried us stopped regularly at the suitors' island upon 
her return voyage to Corfu. We could not take this 
voyage ; therefore we were free to wish (selfishly) that 
this particular one, among the many deceptive state- 
ments which we had read, might have been veracious. 
For " communication by caique " is surely a phrase of 
delight. It brings up not only the Ionian, but the 
^Egean Sea; it carries the imagination onward to the 
Bosporus itself. 

Sir William Gell and Dr. Schliemann between them 
have discovered at Ithaca all the sites of the Odyssey, 
even to the stone looms of the nymphs. Other explor- 
ers, with colder minds, have decided that at least the 
author of the poem must have had a close acquaintance 
with the island, for many of his descriptions are very 
accurate. We need no guide for Penelope ; we can 
materialize her, as the spiritualists say, for ourselves. 
Hers is a very modern character. One knows without 
the telling that she had much to say, day by day, about 
her sufferings, her feelings, her duty, and her con-, 
science — above all things, her conscience. Her confi- 
dantes in that upper room were probably extremely 
familiar with her point of view, which was that if she 



347 



should choose any one of her suitors, or if she should 
cruelly drive the whole throng away, suicide on an over- 
whelming scale would inevitably be the result. It 
would amount to a depopulation of the entire archipel- 
ago ! Would any woman be justified in causing such 
widespread despair as that? 

The next island, Cephalonia, is the largest of the 
Ionian group. There is much to say about it. But I 
must not say it here. The truth is that one sails past 
these sisters as slippery Ulysses sailed past the sirens ; 
they are so beautiful that one must tie one's hands to 
the mast (or the bench) to keep them from writing a 
volume on the subject. But I must permit myself a 
word about Sir Charles Napier. Sir Charles was Gov- 
ernor of Cephalonia during the period of the British 
Protectorate, and officially he was a subordinate of the 
Lord High at Corfu. One of these temporary kings 
appears to have felt some jealousy regarding the vigor- 
ous administration of his Cephalonian lieutenant. It 
was not possible to censure his acts ; they were all ad- 
mirable. It was permissible, however, to censure a 
mustache, which at that time was considered a wayward 
appendage, not strictly in accordance with the regula- 
tions. Ludicrous as it may appear, it is nevertheless 
true that this sapient Lord High actually issued an 
order saying that the offending ornament must be 
shaved off. The witty lieutenant's answer was con- 
veyed in four words : " Obeyed — to a hair." Napier 
constructed good roads throughout his rough, moun- 
tainous domain. " I wish I could be buried at the little 
chapel on the top of the mountain," he said to one of his 
friends. " At the last day many a poor mule's soul will 
say a good word for me, I know, when they remember 
what the old road was." One regrets that this wish 
was not carried out. But as for the souls of the poor 
mules, I for one am sure that they will remember him. 



348 



At Zante, for some unexplained cause, the classic as- 
sociations suddenly vanished : Homer faded, Theocri- 
tus followed him ; Pliny and Strabo disappeared. The 
later memories, too : Lord Guildford and his university, 
Byron and his Suliotes, Napier and his mules — all 
these left us. We were back in the present ; we must 
have some Zante flowers and Zante trinkets ; we thought 
of nothing but going ashore. By pushing a bench, with 
semi-unconscious violence, against the Greek, we suc- 
ceeded in making him move a little, so that we could 
rise. Then we landed (but not in a caique), and went 
roaming through the yellow town. Zante is the most 
cheerful-looking place I have ever seen. The bay rip- 
ples and smirks ; it is so pretty that it knows it is 
pretty, and it smirks accordingly. The town, stretch- 
ing, with its gayly tinted houses, round a level semicircle 
at the edge of the water, smiles, as one may say, from 
ear to ear. And this joyful expression is carried up 
the hill, by charming gardens, orange groves, and vine- 
yards, to the Venetian fort at the top, which, as we 
saw it in the brilliant sunshine, with the birds flying 
about it, seemed to be throwing its cap into the sky 
with a huzza. 

" hyacinthine isle ! purple Zante ! 
Isola d'oro ! Fior di Levante !" 

sang Poe, borrowing his chimes this time, however, 
from an Italian song — " Zante, Zante, fior di Levante !" 
This flower of the Levant exports not flowers, but fruit. 
The currants, which had vaguely presented themselves 
at Santa Maura and Cephalonia, came now decisively 
to the front. One does not think of these little berry- 
lettes (I am certainly hunted by " ette ") as ponderous. 
But when one beholds tons of them, cargoes for ships, 
one regards them with a new respect. It was probably 
the brisk commercial aspect of the currants which made 



349 



the port look so modern. All the Ionian Islands except 
Corfu export currants, but Zante throws them out to 
the world with both hands. I must confess that I have 
always blindly supposed (when I thought of it at all) that 
the currant of the plum-pudding was the same fruit as 
the currant of our gardens — that slightly acrid red berry 
which grows on bushes that follow the lines of back 
fences — bushes that have patches of weedy ground under 
them where hens congregate. I fancied that by some 
process unknown to me, at the hands of persons equally 
unknown (perhaps those who bring flattened raisins from 
grapes), these berries were dried, and that they then be- 
came the well-known ornament of the Christmas-cake. 
It was at Zante that my shameful ignorance was made 
clear to me. Here I learned that the dried fruit of com- 
merce is a dwarf grape, which has nothing in common 
with currant jelly. Its English name, currant, is taken 
from the French " raisin de Corinthe," or Corinth grape, 
a title bestowed because the fruit was first brought into 
notice at Corinth. We have stolen this name in the most 
unreasonable way for our red berry. Then, to make the 
confusion worse, as soon as we have put the genuine 
currants into our puddings and cakes, we turn round 
and call them " plums " ! The real currant, the dwarf 
grape of Corinth, is about as large as a gooseberry 
when ripe, and its color is a deep violet-black ; the 
vintage takes place in August. It is not a hardy vine. 
It attains luxuriance, I was told, only in Greece; and 
even there it is restricted to the northern Peloponne- 
sus, the shores of the Gulf of Corinth, and the Ionian 
Islands. M. About, confronted with the 195,000,000 
pounds of currants which were exported in 1876, 
dipped his French pen afresh, and wrote : " Plum- 
pudding and plum-cake are typical pleasures of the 
English nation, pleasures whose charms the Gaul can- 
not appreciate." He adds that if other countries 



350 



should in time be converted to " these two pure 
delights," Greece would not need to cultivate anything 
else; she would become rich " enormement." 

Zante is the sixth of the islands, and as the steamer 
leaves her, still smiling gayly over her dimpling bay, it 
seems proper to cast at least one thought in the direc- 
tion of the seventh sister, upon whom we are now turn- 
ing our backs. For " We are seven" the islands de- 
clare as persistently as the little cottage girl, though the 
seventh has gone away, if not to heaven, at least to the 
very end of the Peloponnesus. Why Cerigo should 
have been included in the Ionian group I do not know ; 
it lies off the southernmost point of Greece, near Cape 
Malea, and might more reasonably be classed with the 
Cyclades, or with Crete. Birthplace of Aphrodite, 
Cythera of the ancients, though it is, I have never met 
any one who has landed there in actual fact (I do not 
include dreams). People going by sea to Athens from 
Naples, or from Brindisi, pass it in their course, and if 
they read their Murray or their Baedeker, to say nothing 
of other literature, no doubt their thoughts dwell upon 
the goddess of love for a moment as they pass her favor- 
ite shore. A photograph of the minds of travellers, as 
their eyes rest upon this celebrated isle, would be inter- 
esting. To mention (with due respect) typical names 
only, what would be the vision of Mr. Herbert Spencer, 
or of Prince Bismarck? of the Archbishop of Canter- 
bury, or of Ibsen ? of General Booth, Tolstoi, or Miss 
Yonge? We can each of us think of a list which would 
rouse our curiosity in an acute degree. To come down 
to an unexciting level, I know what the apparition in 
my own mind would be — that picture in the Uffizi Gal- 
lery at Florence: Botticelli's " Birth of Venus." I 
should inevitably behold the fifteenth-century goddess 
coming over the waves in her very small shell ; I should 
see her high cheek-bones, her sad eyes, her discontented 



353 



mouth, her lank form with the lovely slender feet, and 
her long, thick hair ; and at last I should know (what I 
do not know now) whether she is beautiful or ugly. On 
the shore, too, would appear that galloping woman, 
who, clothed in copiously gathered garments which are 
caught up and tied in the wrong places, brings in haste 
a flowered robe to cover her melancholy mistress. Such 
are the idle fancies that come as one watches the track 
of churned water, like a broad ribbon, stretching from 
the steamer's stern — water forever fleeing backward 
as the boat advances. Scallops of foam sweep out 
on each side ; their cool fringe dips under a little as 
the wavelet which comes from the opposite direction 
lifts its miniature crest and curls over in a graceful 
sweep. 

The voyage northward to Missolonghi is beautiful. 
The sea was dotted with white wings. The Greeks are 
bold sailors ; one never observes here the timidity, the 
haste to seek refuge anywhere and everywhere, which is 
so conspicuous along the Riviera and the western coast 
of Italy. Throughout the Ionian archipelago, and it 
was the same later among the islands of the ^Egean, it 
was inspiring to note the smallest craft, far from land, 
dashing along under full sail, leaning far over as they 
flew. 

Missolonghi is a small abortive Venice, without the 
gondolas; it is situated on a lagoon, and a causeway 
nearly two miles long leads to it, across the shallow wa- 
ter. Vague and unimportant as it is upon its muddy 
shore, it was the soul of the Greek revolution. It has 
been through terrible sieges. During one of these 
Marco Botzaris was in command, and his grave is out- 
side the western gate. A few years ago all the school- 
boys in America could chant his requiem ; perhaps they 
chant it still. After the death of Botzaris, Byron took 
five hundred of the chieftain's needy Suliotes, and 
23 



354 



formed them into a body-guard, giving them generous 
pay. This is but one of many instances. It is the 
fashion of the day to paint Byron in the darkest colors. 
But when you stand in the squalid, unhealthy little 
street where he drew his last breath you realize that he 
came here voluntarily ; that he offered his life if need be, 
and, in the end, gave it, to the cause which appealed to 
him ; he did not stay safely at home and write about it. 
He died nearly seventy years ago, but at Missolonghi 
he is very real and very present still — with his red coat, 
and his bravery and penetration. Napier said that, of 
all the Englishmen who came to assist the Greek revolu- 
tion, Byron was the one who comprehended best the 
character of the modern Greek — " all the rest expected 
to find Plutarch's men." It is another fashion of the 
moment to put aside as of small account the glittering 
cantos which stirred the English-speaking world in the 
early days of this century. But it is not while the wild, 
beautiful Albanian mountains are rising above your 
head that you think meanly of them. " Remember all 
the splendid things he said of Greece," says some one. 
When you are in Greece, you do remember. 

The only brigands we saw we met at Patras. Mis- 
solonghi is on the northern shore of the bay ; to reach 
Patras the steamer crosses to the Peloponnesus side. It 
was a dark night, and 1 don't know where we stopped, 
but it must have been far out from land. The barges 
which came to meet us were rough craft, with loose 
boards for seats and water in the bottom. We ob- 
tained places in one of them, and after twenty minutes 
of pitching up and down, shouting, tumbling about, 
and splashing, the crew bent to their big oars, and we 
started. Swaying lights glimmered through the dark- 
ness here and there ; they came from vessels at anchor 
in the roadstead. We plunged and rolled, apparently 
making no progress ; but at last a long, wet breakwater, 



355 



dimly seen, appeared on the right, and finally we per- 
ceived the lights of the landing-place, which is the water- 
side of one of the squares of the town. Our crew jumped 
out in the surf, and drew the heavy boat up to the 
steps of the embankment. Here were assembled the 
brigands. There were a hundred of them at least, all 
yelling. Probably they were astonished to see ladies 
landing from the Greek coaster. This was part of our 
original misconception in the selection of that steamer 
(a mistake, however, which had turned out to be such 
a picturesque success) ; but it was part also of a general 
error which came from our nationality. For we were 
natives of the one land on earth where to women is always 
accorded, without question, a first place. It had never 
occurred to us that we could be jostled. After Patras 
we were more careful (and more proud of our country 
than ever). But at the moment, as we were pulled first 
to the right by men who wished to carry us and our 
travelling-bags in that direction, and then to the left by 
others who had attacked the first party, felled them, 
and captured their prey — at the moment when we were 
closely pressed by a throng of wild-looking, dancing, 
shrieking figures, dressed in strange attire, and carry- 
ing pistols, it was not a little alarming. The fray had 
lasted six or seven minutes, and there were no signs of 
cessation, when there appeared on the edge of the throng 
a neatly dressed little man in spectacles. He made his 
way within, and rescued us by the simple process of re- 
peating something that sounded like " La, la, la, la J 
La, la, la, la /" Breathless, freed, we stood, saved, in 
the square, while our preserver went back and captured 
our bags, bringing them out and depositing them gen- 
tly, one after the other, on the ground by our side. We 
then waited until a handcart, trundled by a petticoated 
porter, appeared, when the little man led us quietly to 
the custom-house near by, where, after some delay, we 



356 



obtained our luggage, which was piled upon the cart. Fol- 
lowed by this cart, we walked across the square to the 
hotel. Throughout the whole of this process, which last- 
ed twenty minutes, the brigands surrounded us in a close, 
scowling circle that moved as we moved. When its 
line drew too near us the little man walked round the 
ring — " La, la, la, la ! La, la, la, la /" — and it widened 
slightly, but only slightly. We reached refuge at last, 
and escaped into a lighted hall. It was a real escape, 
and the hotel seemed a paradise. It was not until the 
next day that we recognized it as a mortal inn, with 
the appearance of the well-known tepid soup in the din- 
ing-room ; but the coffee was excellent. And this showed 
that there was a German influence somewhere in the 
house ; it proved to emanate from our preserver, who 
was also the landlord, and an exile from the Rhine. I 
think he was homesick. But at least he had learned the 
dialect of his temporary abode, and also the way to 
treat the last remnants of the pirate and brigand days, 
as its spirit reappears now and then, though faintly, 
among the hangers-on of a Greek port town. 

Though I have talked of brigands, for Greece as a 
whole, for the young nation, I have but one feeling — 
namely, admiration. The country, escaping at last from 
its bondage to Turkey, after a long and exhausting war, 
had everything to do and nothing to do it with. There 
was no agriculture, no commerce, no money, and only a 
small population ; there were no roads, no schools, no 
industries or trades, and few men of education. (I 
quote the words of Mr. Shaw-Lefevre, written in 1891.) 
The Greeks have done much, and under the most un- 
favorable conditions. They will do more. The strug- 
gle upward of an intelligent and ambitious people is 
deeply interesting, and the effort in Greece appeals es- 
pecially to Americans, because the country, in spite of 
its form of government, is a democracy. 



357 



When we left Patras we left the Ionian Sea, and I 
ought therefore to bring these slight records to a close. 
But it was the same blue water, after all, that was wash- 
ing the shores of the long, lake-like gulf beyond, and 
the impression produced by" its pure, early-world tint, 
lasts as far as Corinth ; here one turns inland, and the 
next crested waves which one meets are ^Egean. They 
rouse other sensations. 

There is now a railroad from Patras to Athens. On 
the morning when we made the transit there was given 
to us for our sole use a saloon on wheels, which was 
much larger than the compartments of an English rail- 
way carriage, and smaller than an American parlor car. 
In its centre was a long table, and a cushioned bench 
ran round its four sides ; broad windows gave us a wide 
view of the landscape as we rolled (rather slowly) along. 
The track follows the gulf all the way to Corinth, and 
we passed through miles of vineyards. But I did not 
think of currants here ; they had been left behind at 
Zante. There is, indeed, only one thing to think of, 
and the heart beats quickly as Parnassus lifts its head 
above the other snow-clad summits. " The prophetess 
of Delphi was hypnotized, of course." This sudden in- 
cursion of modernity was due no doubt to the mode of 
our progress through this sacred country. We ought 
to have been crossing the gulf in a Phaeacian boat, 
which needs no pilot, or, at the very least, in a bark 
with an azure prow. But even upon an iron track, 
through utilitarian currant fields, the spell descends 
again when the second peak becomes visible at the east- 
ern end of the bay. 



Not here, Apollo ! 

Are haunts meet for thee, 
But where Helicon breaks down 

In cliff to the sea — " 



358 



How many times, in lands far from here, had I read 
these lines for their mere beauty, without hope of 
more ! 

And now before my eyes was Helicon itself. 



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